SCUTARI (Albanian, SKODRA), a town of Albania. Pop. (1930) was 29,209, of whom 54% are Roman Catholics, 38% Muslims, and 8% Orthodox. Scutari lies in a plain surrounded by lofty mountains, except where it adjoins the lake. Malaria is prevalent in summer as the town is very liable to flooding, es pecially since the close of the 19th century, when the Drin was deflected at its junction with the Boyana. The mosques and the bazaar, lately much damaged by fire, give the town an oriental appearance, but the finest buildings are Italian, viz., the Roman Catholic cathedral, and an old Venetian citadel on a high crag. The fortress was recently almost destroyed in a storm, the pasha having fixed a brass spike to the tower containing the powder magazine. Scutari is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop and has a Jesuit college and seminary. Trade tends to decline and to be diverted to Salonika and other ports connected with the main European railways. A light railway was built by the Aus trians from Scutari to the Voyusa during the World War and the roads were much improved during the occupation by the Great Powers after the Balkan Wars (1912-13). Grain, wool, hides, skins, tobacco, sumach, and draught horses are exported, and also large quantities of a kind of sardine called scoranza (Albanian, seraga) caught in the Boyana. Cotton stuffs are manufactured, and Scutari is the centre of the inlaid metal work for weapons. There are copper mines worked by an English company, and a small saltpetre factory. Textiles, metals, provisions and hardware are imported. The Imperial Ottoman bank was closed in 1915.
The Boyana is navigable for small vessels for 12 m. from its mouth, and cargoes for Scutari are then transhipped into light river boats. In the flood season goods are taken in small steamers up the Drin from the port of San Giovanni di Medua (Albanian, Shin Ghen), or landed at Alessio (Albanian, Lesh), the market and port of the Mirdite country, and conveyed thence in small vessels to Scutari. Steamers ply on Lake Scutari to and from
Rijeka in Montenegro, but when the water is low, it is necessary to row out to them.
Livy relates that Skodra was chosen as his capital by the Illyrian king Gentius, who was besieged here and carried captive to Rome in 168 B.C. In the 7th century the town fell into the hands of the Serbians, but after the death of Stephen Dushan in 1355, the Balsha family, of Norman extraction, held part of Al bania, with Scutari as their capital until 1394, when they sold the town to Venice. In the 15th century it became a stronghold of Skanderbeg's (q.v.), but on his death in 1467 reverted to the Venetians, who were, however, driven out by the Turks in 1479. In 1760 Mahomet of Bushat, pasha of Scutari, made himself an independent prince in all but name, and secured the hereditary pashalik for his family, the last of whom, Mustafa, was deposed by the Sultan in 1831. Scutari was wrested from the Turks by the Montenegrins in the Balkan Wars (1912-13) but was sur rendered to an international force in the latter year and incorpor ated into the kingdom of Albania.
Lake Scutari, lying 20 ft. above sea level, and 135 sq.m. in extent, is almost bisected by the line of the Montenegrin frontier.
It occupies one of the depressions known as polyes, which are common throughout the Illyrian Karst region, and though its average depth is only 23 ft., there are a series of holes near the south-west extremity, one of which is 144 ft. deep. The Moratcha enters the lake near the Montenegrin port of Plavnitza, while the Boyana issues from its south-west extremity and flows into the Adriatic. The lake abounds in aquatic birds and fish; its bril liantly clear green waters, and its setting of rugged, many-hued mountains, render it one of the most beautiful lakes in Europe.