Description
Kuçovë is a municipality in lower-central Albania. It was formed at the 2015 local government reform by the merger of the former municipalities Kozare, Kuçovë, Lumas and Perondi, that became municipal units. The seat of the municipality is the town Kuçovë. The total population is 31,262 (2011 census), in a total area of 160.33 km2. The population of the former municipality at the 2011 census was 12,654.
Ancient
Archaeologists found in the village of Katundas near Kuçovë six phases of inhabitation dating to the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, urban Illyrian and the Late Antiquity era.
Modern
Kuçova has been an industrial city since the Italian influence in the early 1920s. In 1928 in “Dikater” was drilled the first oil hole in Albania. From this moment onwards the city has been on oil drilling maps. Since 1928, the Italian company AIPA had an agreement with the Zog I government that if the oil extraction would surpass 50,000 tonnes per year, this company would build a refinery in Albania. In 1939 Albania was occupied by Italians and therefore, though the oil extracted was more than 170,000 ton, the refinery was never built and the oil was transported to Italy.[5]
During Communist Albania the city was renamed to Stalin City and was a closed military district. The city was extensively developed in the 1950s and is of interest to students of communist architecture, although following the collapse of communism there has been much unauthorized building and modification to the original buildings. It is home to one airbase of the Albanian Air Force, although since 2005 the country’s air force has ceased flying the aged MiG fighters provided by the Soviet Union and China and has been reduced to rotary wing aircraft only.
