Himarė (Himara; ??????, Chimara or ????????, Cheimarra) is a municipality and region in Vlorė County, southern Albania. The municipality has a total area of 571.94 sqkm and consists of the administrative units of Himarė, Horė-Vranisht and Lukovė. It lies between the Ceraunian Mountains and the Albanian Ionian Sea Coast and is part of the Albanian Riviera. The traditionally perceived borders of the Himarė region gradually shrank during the Ottoman period, being reduced to the town of Himarė and the villages of the coastline (Bregdet in Albanian), generally including only Palase, Dhermi, Pilur, Kudhes, Vuno, Ilias and Qeparo.
The municipal unit of Himarė is predominantly populated by an ethnic Greek community. The local population is bilingual in Greek and Albanian. In particular the town of Himarė and the villages of Dermi and Palasa, which together account for the bulk of the population of the municipal unit of Himarė, are mainly populated by a Greek population. The villages of Iljas, Lukovė, Kudhės, Pilur and Vuno are inhabited by an Albanian population, while Qeparo is inhabited by both Albanians and Greeks. In the 2011 census, in the former municipality of Horė-Vranisht 83% declared themselves as Albanians and the rest didn't provide a reply. In the former Lukovė municipality the population is mostly Albanian with a Greek minority.
The Himarė region is a strip approximately 20 km long by 5 km wide, covering a total of 132.13 km2, and bounded by the 2000-metre-high Llogara mountains to the northeast (known in antiquity and in the local Greek dialect as the Ceraunian mountains (???????? ???, Keravnia ori, "Thunder Mountains") and the Ionian Sea to the southwest. There are long white sandy beaches and the few hills close to the sea are terraced and planted with olive and citrus trees. The villages of Himarė are perched up high on the spurs of the Ceraunian range in positions which offered natural defences against the nearby Lab Albanians during the Ottoman era. The traditionally perceived borders of the Himarė region gradually shrank during the Ottoman period, being reduced only to the town of Himarė and the villages on the coastline (Bregdet in Albanian).
