Sarandë

Bronze Age tools of Mycenaean type found in the town date from about 1400–1100 BC. In antiquity the place was Onchesmos, a port of the Chaonians and the harbour of their capital Phoenice, facing the north-western point of Corfu; in Cicero's time it was a usual point of departure from Epirus to Italy. Descendants of Jewish captives brought to the coast around AD 70 are thought to have built a synagogue here in the 4th or 5th century, held to be Albania's first, and it gave way to a church in the 6th. Goths raided the coast in the 6th century, and by 1191 the settlement appears to have been abandoned. Its modern name comes from the nearby 6th-century church and later monastery of Agioi Saranta, the Forty Saints; Venetian maps called it Santi Quaranta.

Under Ali Pasha a small settlement called Skala stood by the harbour, and until the Balkan Wars Sarandë was a commercial landing with no permanent residents. Greek rebels took and burned it in 1878. Greek troops held it in the Balkan Wars, but in December 1913 it was awarded to Albania, and it became an important town of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus. Italy occupied it from 1916 to 1920, financed a new harbour between 1926 and 1939, and in the Second World War renamed it Porto Edda after Mussolini's daughter. Greek forces took it in December 1940, and in October 1944 British commandos and Albanian partisans captured the town.

Under communism Muslim Albanians were settled in the formerly Christian town and the harbour church of Saint Spyridon was demolished. After 1991 the town saw violence against its Greek community in 1992 and the unrest of 1997, then a long tourism and building boom.

Sarandë is a young town on old ground. It had 110 inhabitants in 1912 and 810 at the 1927 census, and was made the centre of a district in 1957. Its population was entirely Christian until communist-era resettlement brought Muslim Albanians, and today it is considered one of the two centres of the Greek minority in Albania, alongside Gjirokastër, with Aromanians, Roma and Ashkali as smaller communities. Greek-language classes run in local schools, and Greek is heard on the streets alongside Albanian.

The town's culture is that of the seafront. It is regarded as the unofficial capital of the Albanian Riviera, and it has long been a place where Albanian honeymooners traditionally spend their holidays. The evening xhiro along the bay front, past the cafés and the sea, is the social centre of daily life from spring to autumn.

The past is close at hand: the synagogue and church ruins in the middle of town, the monastery on the hill that gave the town its name, and Butrint to the south, where Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Venetian layers lie on one peninsula. The Bronze Age finds, the legend that the ancient port was named after Anchises, father of Aeneas, and the Italian-era name Porto Edda are all part of how the town tells its story.

Sarandë municipality, which takes in the town and Ksamil, had about 20,000 residents at the 2011 census; civil registers, which also count citizens living abroad, recorded about 41,000 in 2013. The population has nearly doubled since the 1990s, while many ethnic Greeks emigrated to Greece in the same years.

Tourism is the main economy, alongside services, fishing and construction, and the season peaks in summer. Visitor numbers have grown steadily, many arriving by cruise ship, and the port has been expanded since 2012 to take them; a 2026 travel report ranked the town as Europe's most affordable beach destination for the summer season. An uncontrolled building boom has covered the hillsides with apartment blocks and may hamper the town's future as a resort, and Ksamil has been heavily developed too. Family tourism and seasonal summer work are thought to soften unemployment.

The rhythm follows the season: a quiet working town in winter, and in summer a resort of late nights, crowded beaches, ferries from Corfu and traffic jams on the road to Ksamil as day trippers return at sunset.

Sarandë eats from the sea. Fresh fish is on almost every menu, and the restaurants beside the water and the fishing port serve seafood such as sea bass, gilt-head bream and octopus. The lagoons of Butrint, south of the town, hold extensive mussel beds. Fish dishes in this part of Albania are often flavoured with white vinegar and olive oil, which grows particularly well in the south.

Everyday eating is cheap and quick. Fast-food counters sell souvlaki, usually pork, and crêpes, byrek, the savoury pie, is everyday food, and yoghurt-flavoured ice cream is sold on the boardwalk in summer. Ksamil's restaurants mix seafood with pizza, Greek dishes and grilled meat, a sign of how close Greece is.

Raki, made most often from grapes, plums or blackberries, is the common spirit, and in the south a version flavoured with oregano, raki rigoni, is popular. Honey from the Llogara Pass, sold by roadside merchants, is a local speciality to take home, and coffee in the cafés along the bay is part of every day.