Papër

• 1. Introduction

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  Papër is a village in central Albania, and on the 26th of July 1992 it was founded as a municipality. For more than two decades it governed a stretch of countryside in Elbasan County, until a national reform folded it into a larger town. What did this place hold inside its borders, and who steered it through those years? A river, a highway, and thirteen villages all run through the answer.

• 2. Land And River

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  Sixty percent of Papër is fields, a flat expanse that gives way to hills across another thirty percent and finally to mountains over the last ten. The land climbs from a low of 60 meters above sea level to a high of 722 meters, so a single municipal unit spans both lowland plain and rising slope. The Shkumbin River flows through Papër, threading water through that mix of field, hill, and mountain. The municipal unit stretches across 52 kilometers of borders, the outer edge of everything the name once contained.

• 3. Thirteen Villages

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  Thirteen villages make up the municipal unit of Papër, beginning with Papër itself. The roll continues through Vidhas, Broshke, Balldre, Murres, Valas, Lugaj, Pajun, Ullishtaj, Papër-Sollak, Vidhas-Asgjel, Bizhute, and Jatesh. Two of those names, Papër-Sollak and Vidhas-Asgjel, echo other settlements on the list, hinting at how closely the communities cluster. At the 2011 census the people living across all thirteen numbered 6,348.

• 4. Road And Reform

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  The Elbasan-Rrogozhinë-Durrës highway runs past Papër, which sits 13 kilometers west of Elbasan along that route. Since 2000, Shefqet Bullari has been the elected mayor of Papër, a single name holding the office across the years that followed. At the 2015 local government reform Papër lost its standing as a former municipality and became a subdivision of the municipality of Elbasan. The town it once sat west of is now the town it belongs to.