Albania’s three World Heritage Sites - Butrint, Gjirokastra and Berat - are of truly outstanding universal value as required by UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention. The fact that they are less well-known as similar places in neighbouring countries can be attributed only to the fact that Albania as a whole has not received much international attention for more than fifty years, and that situation hasn’t fundamentally changed until today. Albania’s cultural heritage had been well-preserved during the communist era but was seriously neglected until a few years ago. In that situation, inscribing sites in the World Heritage List has probably done more than anything else to safeguard them through the rigors of the recent past.