How to Distinguish
- Country-code top-level domain is .al
- The official language is Albanian (Shqip); Cyrillic is not used
- The camera feed sometimes shows a thin black line across the image (by Geotips )
- License plates have blue bands on both sides, and there are also red plates
- Letters with Ë and ë appear frequently nearby
- This diacritic is also common in French, Dutch, Hungarian, and Luxembourgish
- Reference: Ë - Weblio dictionary (Japanese)
- Chevron signs with a white arrow on a black background are widely used
- Water tanks are often mounted on rooftops
- German-made cars, especially Mercedes-Benz, make up a high share of vehicles (参考文献 Here’s Why Mercedes-Benz Accounts For Nearly 30 Percent Of Total Vehicles Registered In Albania)
Signs you can find
Rooftop water tanks are a familiar sight in Albania. Many homes place storage tanks on the roof and pump water upward. (参考文献 Preliminary survey report for the Tirana Metropolitan Sewerage System Improvement Project (JICA))
Standard Albanian license plates carry blue strips on both sides. You will also see red plates, and some vehicles use plates with red bands on both sides. Owing to historic imports, roughly one-third of the cars on the road are Mercedes-Benz. (参考文献 Here’s Why Mercedes-Benz Accounts For Nearly 30 Percent Of Total Vehicles Registered In Albania)
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Albania shares many visual cues with Italy, one of its main trading partners. Both countries use blue bands on their plates, Italian-style street-name signs , similar bollards , and comparable chevrons (参考文献 Map of European Road Curve Chevron Signs). The backs of signs are often dark, just like in Italy. The language, however, is distinct—spotting Albanian text confirms you are not in Italy. Below: Italy on the left vs Albania on the right.
Albania was once a protectorate of Italy (参考文献 Albania (Wikipedia, Japanese)) and nearly half of its trade is still conducted with Italy. (参考文献 Free Trade and Gravity Model: Albania as Part of CEFTA)
