A short history
People have been bashing stones, copper and iron into shape here since Neolithic times, though Korça was first documented, as Coviza, in 1280. After modest feudal beginnings in the 13th century, the town bloomed after the Ottoman occupation in 1440; overseeing the building of Korça was Iljaz Hoxha. He later earned the title Iljaz Bey Mirahor after playing an important role in the 1453 siege of Constantinople and returned to build a mosque, now named after him. Korça developed into an important centre of trade and learning in the 17th-19th centuries, with trade especially strong after the decline of Voskopoja, in the second half of the 19th century. The first Albanian-language school was founded in 1887. In the three decades after the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1912, Korça became part of the newly independent Albania, but was occupied by the Greeks, Austro-Hungarians and the Greeks again, followed in 1916 by the French (who founded a school where later dictator Enver Hoxha studied and taught) before rejoining Albania in 1920. A similar game of musical chairs started in 1930, when Korça was occupied by Italians, Greeks and Germans before becoming Albanian again in 1944. The brutal Hoxha regime years saw many thousands of people persecuted and killed, until the reforms of 1991 finally toppled his statue in Korça. The town remains an important agricultural and industrial centre.