Pennsylvania is home to a long-established Albanian community, and its story runs back more than a century. Philadelphia is where it began: the city’s first Albanian Orthodox parish, SS. Peter and Paul, was founded in 1915, a second, St. John Chrysostom, opened in 1931, and both are still active today. Most of the present community, though, arrived after 1990, and it is now organized around newer groups such as the Bijtë e Shqipes association in Northeast Philadelphia. Today Pennsylvania has the eighth-largest Albanian population of any US state, anchored by Philadelphia and its suburbs, with smaller pockets across the state. This guide covers where Albanians live in Pennsylvania, the community’s history, community life today, and where to find Albanian-owned businesses.
TLDR
- Pennsylvania has the eighth-largest Albanian population of any US state, roughly 10,400 residents (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024)
- Philadelphia is the historic and demographic heart of Albanian Pennsylvania: about 4,200 people in the city and about 9,100 in the metro area report Albanian ancestry
- Northeast Philadelphia, Port Richmond and Fishtown, plus the nearby suburban counties, are where Albanians have been settling, according to WHYY (2018)
- The oldest institution, SS. Peter and Paul Albanian Orthodox Church, was founded in 1915, and St. John Chrysostom followed in 1931
- A mix of long-established families and newer arrivals from Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia
- ALB Connection lists verified Albanian-owned businesses across Pennsylvania
Where Albanians Live in Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
Philadelphia is the center of Albanian life in Pennsylvania. About 4,200 city residents report Albanian ancestry (margin of error roughly 1,300; U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024), about four in ten of the statewide total. Neighborhood-level Census estimates are too small to be reliable, but local reporting fills the gap: in 2018 the public broadcaster WHYY reported that Northeast Philadelphia, Port Richmond and Fishtown, along with the nearby suburban counties, had become a popular settling place for Albanians.
The community’s institutions line up with that picture. SS. Peter and Paul Albanian Orthodox Church, which began in 1915 in a building at Hancock and Oxford Streets, is now on Old Bustleton Avenue in the Northeast, and the Bijtë e Shqipes association is building its community center on Willits Road, also in the Northeast. St. John Chrysostom Albanian Orthodox Church is in Center City, at 237 North 17th Street.
Beyond Philadelphia
While Philadelphia dominates, Albanian families are also found in the surrounding suburbs of Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware counties, and in smaller numbers around Pittsburgh and other Pennsylvania cities. As families have prospered, many have moved from the historic city neighborhoods out into the suburbs, a familiar pattern across the older Albanian-American communities of the Northeast.A Brief History
Pennsylvania’s Albanian story has two chapters: a small Orthodox community that organized in Philadelphia around the time of the First World War, and a much larger migration after 1990.
The first chapter is documented by the city’s two Albanian Orthodox parishes. SS. Peter and Paul was founded in 1915 and served its first Divine Liturgy on December 25 of that year. Three years later the congregation had raised enough to buy a church building at Hancock and Oxford Streets, which Fan Noli, then an archimandrite, consecrated on January 12, 1919. A second group, led by Fr. Mark Kondili, worshipped in a Serbian Orthodox church and, by the parish’s own account, even in a saloon before opening St. John Chrysostom in 1931 in the former Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, an 1848 building by the architect Napoleon LeBrun. In 1946 the parish voted to place itself under Bishop Fan Noli, and the congregation bought the building for $25,000. English entered church life early: the SS. Peter and Paul choir began singing responses in English in 1949, and St. John’s was reading the Gospel in both Albanian and English by 1950.
In those years Philadelphia was a parish town rather than a national headquarters. The first Albanian-American newspapers, Kombi and Dielli, and the Vatra federation were all founded in Boston, and the history of Boston’s St. George Cathedral lists Philadelphia among the places where new parishes formed afterward. In the standard reference article on Albanian Americans, Pennsylvania is listed eighth among the states by 1990 Census count, the same place it holds today.
The second chapter began with the fall of communism in Albania in 1991 and continued through the Kosovo war of 1999. St. John Chrysostom’s own history records that after 1990 its aging congregation doubled with young Albanian families, many of whom spoke little English. A 2015 Harvard Growth Lab profile found Pennsylvania to be one of only three states, with Maryland and Ohio, where first-generation Albanian Americans outnumbered the second generation, a sign of how much of the community is recent. The newcomers built their own institutions, starting with the Gjuha Jonë Albanian school in 2004.
Community Life
Pennsylvania’s Albanian community blends a century-old Orthodox core with a much larger group of families who arrived in the last thirty-five years.
The two Albanian Orthodox churches, both parishes of the Albanian Archdiocese of the Orthodox Church in America, remain the oldest institutions. St. John Chrysostom, with approximately 200 family units according to its diocesan listing, describes its congregation as a mix of descendants of the founders, newer immigrants from Albania and converts. SS. Peter and Paul, in the Northeast, celebrates its Sunday liturgy in English. A national federation of Albanian Muslim community centers formed in 1992 has also listed a center in Philadelphia.
Cultural associations carry most of the newer community’s activity: Independence and Flag Day celebrations each November, a Sunday Albanian school that has been running since 2004, and social events that keep families connected across the generations.
Food and small business remain central to community life. Albanian-owned bakeries, cafes, restaurants, and family-run trades across Philadelphia and its suburbs serve both as livelihoods and as informal gathering places, where byrek and coffee bring neighbors together.
Community Organizations in Pennsylvania
The best-known Albanian organization in Pennsylvania is Bijtë e Shqipes (Sons of the Eagle), an Albanian American cultural association based in Northeast Philadelphia that works to unite the community and to promote and preserve the Albanian language, culture, and national identity through events and programs. When WHYY profiled it in 2018, the association had about 400 members and had worked for 14 years out of a building at Harbison and Torresdale Avenues, where it ran a Sunday school for about 60 children. That year it bought the historic Lower Dublin Academy on Willits Road to turn it into a permanent Albanian school and community center. See our full directory of Albanian American organizations for more.
Albanian Population in Pennsylvania
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2020-2024 5-Year Estimates, Table B04006), roughly 10,400 Pennsylvania residents report Albanian ancestry, the eighth-largest state count in the country. As everywhere, this figure undercounts the true community, because ancestry is self-reported and optional, only two ancestries per person are tabulated, many Albanians from Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro are recorded under other ancestries or under none, and later generations often stop reporting it. About 4,200 live in the city of Philadelphia (margin of error roughly 1,300) and about 9,100 in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, which extends into New Jersey and Delaware. The Bijtë e Shqipes association put the Philadelphia area far higher in 2018, at about 32,000 and growing by about 1,000 a year (WHYY, 2018).
Hungry? Find Albanian restaurants near you, searchable by city or ZIP code.
Curious how this compares nationwide? See our guide to the Albanian population in the United States, the 2026 State of Albanian-Owned Business in America report, and the Harvard Kennedy School Growth Lab’s Statistical Profiling of the Albanian-Americans.
Find Albanian-Owned Businesses in Pennsylvania
Albanian entrepreneurs are active across Pennsylvania, especially in and around Philadelphia, in food, construction, and services. Top business categories include:- Restaurants & Bakeries
- Construction & Trades
- Auto & Services
- Professional Services
Featured Albanian Business Owners in Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the heart of Albanian entrepreneurship in Pennsylvania. Owners profiled in our featured business owner series include:- Eda Petuqi: insurance agency
- Arber Mullai: the La Voglia restaurants
- Arbjon Daku: Daku Automotive Detailing
- Jurgen Bilali: Golden Electrical Services
- Endrit Bodi: restaurants and real estate
- Leo Osmanollaj: a family restaurant
- Stela Josifi: insurance and mortgage
- Oligert Gjuzi: entrepreneurship
- Arti Ismailanji: Arti’s Kitchen and Bath Remodeling
Hungry? See our guide to Albanian-owned restaurants in Pennsylvania.
Own an Albanian Business in Pennsylvania?
If you run an Albanian-owned business in Pennsylvania, list it for free on ALB Connection. Make it easier for the community to find and support you. Add your listing today.Albanian Population in Pennsylvania by County
The statewide figure hides how concentrated the community is. About three in four Pennsylvanians who report Albanian ancestry live in Philadelphia or one of its four suburban counties. The table shows every county with an estimate above 300 in the ACS 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024 (Table B04006). Outside Philadelphia the samples are small, so the margins of error are wide.
| County | Main city or area | Albanian ancestry (estimate) | Margin of error |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia | City of Philadelphia | 4,226 | plus or minus 1,302 |
| Montgomery | Philadelphia suburbs | 1,251 | plus or minus 492 |
| Delaware | Philadelphia suburbs | 1,157 | plus or minus 452 |
| Chester | Philadelphia suburbs | 808 | plus or minus 383 |
| Bucks | Philadelphia suburbs | 594 | plus or minus 225 |
| Northampton | Lehigh Valley | 369 | plus or minus 216 |
| Allegheny | Pittsburgh | 353 | plus or minus 251 |
| Dauphin | Harrisburg | 348 | plus or minus 392 |
| Pennsylvania (statewide) | 10,430 | plus or minus 1,740 |
The Philadelphia metropolitan area, which also takes in parts of New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, has about 9,100. Pittsburgh, the state’s second city, has a very small community by comparison: about 350 in all of Allegheny County.
The Lower Dublin Academy: A New Albanian Center in Northeast Philadelphia
The most visible Albanian project in Pennsylvania is the restoration of the Lower Dublin Academy, a fieldstone schoolhouse at Academy and Willits Roads dating to 1803. WHYY reported that the building was designed by Edward Duffield, a watchmaker, engraver and ally of Benjamin Franklin, later served as a public school and a private home, and had stood empty since a fire in 2006.
Bijtë e Shqipes bought the building in July 2018 for $200,000 after collecting $140,000 from its members in three months, according to WHYY, with plans for a school for up to 200 students, a small museum and a community center. In July 2023, 6abc reported that the association had received its permits to restore the building and was still raising funds to finish the work.
The city has recognized the project. In May 2024 Philadelphia City Council adopted a resolution adding the name “Gjergj Kastrioti Skenderbeu Way” to the street signs on Willits Road between Holme Avenue and Academy Road, in honor of the Albanian national hero Skënderbeu and the community center being built at 3322 Willits Road.
Gjuha Jonë: Philadelphia’s Albanian Language School
If you want your children to read and write Albanian, Philadelphia has one of the longer-running diaspora schools in the country. Gjuha Jonë (“Our Language”), run by Bijtë e Shqipes, opened on March 7, 2004 with 85 pupils. In an interview published by the newspaper Dielli in 2023, the school said it had taught more than 800 students over twenty years and was running five classes, in person on Sundays and online on Saturdays. Lessons cover Albanian reading, writing and grammar along with Albanian history.
Visiting Philadelphia’s Albanian Orthodox Churches
Both historic parishes hold regular Sunday services. St. John Chrysostom is at 237 North 17th Street in Center City, in the 1848 former Church of the Epiphany. SS. Peter and Paul is at 9230 Old Bustleton Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia, where the Divine Liturgy is celebrated in English on Sundays at 10:00 AM. Service times change around feast days, so check each parish’s website before you go.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Albanians live in Pennsylvania?
About 10,400 Pennsylvania residents report Albanian ancestry (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024, Table B04006), the eighth-largest state count in the country. Census figures undercount the community: the Bijtë e Shqipes association estimated about 32,000 Albanians in the Philadelphia area alone in 2018 (WHYY).Where do most Albanians in Pennsylvania live?
About three in four live in and around Philadelphia (about 4,200 in the city and about 3,800 in Montgomery, Delaware, Chester and Bucks counties, by Census ancestry count), and WHYY reported in 2018 that Northeast Philadelphia, Port Richmond, Fishtown and the nearby suburban counties were the areas where Albanians were settling.Why is Philadelphia important in Albanian-American history?
Philadelphia is home to two of the oldest Albanian Orthodox parishes in the country. SS. Peter and Paul was founded in 1915, and its first church was consecrated by Fan Noli in 1919; St. John Chrysostom opened in 1931. The national organizations and newspapers of that era were based in Boston, not Philadelphia.When did Albanians first come to Pennsylvania?
The first organized community dates to the First World War era: SS. Peter and Paul Albanian Orthodox Church was founded in Philadelphia in 1915. Most of today’s community arrived much later, after the fall of communism in Albania in 1991 and the 1999 Kosovo war.Are there Albanian businesses in Pennsylvania?
Yes. ALB Connection maintains a directory of Albanian-owned businesses across Pennsylvania. Visit our Pennsylvania business directory to search by city or category.Is there an Albanian church in Philadelphia?
Yes, two. SS. Peter and Paul Albanian Orthodox Church, founded in 1915, is at 9230 Old Bustleton Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia. St. John Chrysostom Albanian Orthodox Church, opened in 1931, is at 237 North 17th Street in Center City. Both belong to the Albanian Archdiocese of the Orthodox Church in America.
Is there an Albanian school in Philadelphia?
Yes. The Gjuha Jonë Albanian school, run by the Bijtë e Shqipes association, has taught Albanian language and history to children since March 7, 2004. In 2023 it reported more than 800 students taught over twenty years, with Sunday classes in person and Saturday classes online.
How many Albanians live in Pittsburgh?
Very few compared with Philadelphia. About 350 residents of Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, report Albanian ancestry in the ACS 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024, with a margin of error of about 250. Roughly three in four Albanians in Pennsylvania live in Philadelphia and its four suburban counties.
Sources and Further Reading
- Harvard Kennedy School Growth Lab: Statistical Profiling of the Albanian-Americans
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, Table B04006 (People Reporting Ancestry)
- Every Culture: Albanian Americans (early immigration and settlement patterns)
- U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024, Table B04006 (People Reporting Ancestry)
- Orthodox Church in America: SS. Peter and Paul Church, Philadelphia, parish history
- Orthodox Church in America: St. John Chrysostom Church, Philadelphia, parish history
- St. John Chrysostom Albanian Orthodox Church: Brief History of Our Church
- Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church, Philadelphia: official website
- Orthodox Church in America: St. George Cathedral, South Boston, parish history
- WHYY: A NE Philly school designed by a friend of Ben Franklin to be reborn as Albanian cultural center (2018)
- 6abc Philadelphia: Albanian community bringing new life to historic Lower Dublin Academy (2023)
- Philadelphia City Council: Resolution 240402, Gjergj Kastrioti Skenderbeu Way (2024)
- Dielli: Shkolla shqipe Gjuha Jonë, 20 vite mësim shqip në Philadelphia (2023)
- Harvard Kennedy School Growth Lab: The Albanian Community in the United States, statistical profile (2015)
Related community guides
Explore Albanian communities in other US states and cities:
- Albanians in New York
- Albanians in New Jersey
- Albanians in Massachusetts
- Albanians in Connecticut
- Albanians in Ohio
- Albanians in Florida
Author: Val Demiri
Valbona is an editor and writer at ALB Connection, where she covers the people, businesses, and culture shaping the Albanian diaspora. A journalism graduate of the University of Iowa, her work spans community profiles, success stories, and features on Albanian life across the US, Europe, and beyond. She is drawn to stories that celebrate Albanian achievement and keep the community connected across borders.
