Map - Palasë

Palasë (Palasë or Palasa; Παλάσα, Palasa) also Paljasa (Παλιάσα), is a village in Himarë municipality (13 kilometres from the town), Vlorë County, southern Albania. It is located near the Llogara National Park and next to the Ionian coast on the Albanian Riviera.

In classical antiquity Roman writer Lucan recorded a town named Palaeste on the Ceraunian Mountains, which corresponds to the site area of modern day Palasë. In Palaeste, Julius Caesar landed from Brundusium, in order to carry on the war against Pompey.

According to local legend the settlement was initially located on the coast on a location once known as Meghalihora (Μεγάλη χώρα), but due to pirate attacks in 12th-13th century it was slightly moved inland. In the local Greek dialect of Himara the change /st/ > /s/ is a typical phonetic rule. Thus if Palaeste is linguistically connected with modern Greek Paliasa then this change must have taken place before 1582. In 1632 an Albanian-language school was founded in Palasë. In 1663 a Greek school was established in Palasa.

The Italian missionary Giuseppe Schiro wrote that in 1722 Palasë was inhabited by Greeks. It is still not clear if there was any significant migration to or from the village. Andrei Sobolev in fieldwork in the 21st century further documented that the families Babe, Gjinajt, Çaço, Paço, Xhelilaj, and Mëhilli hailed from Dukat, while few others (Milaj, Papadhates) from Krujë and the Peloponnese. In 1720, the villages of Himara, Palasa, Ilias, Vuno, Pilur and Qeparo refused to submit to the Pasha of Delvina.

Until the 1750s Himarë was composed of more than 50 villages, but by the end of the 1780s it comprised only 16, situated by the seashore from Saranda to Palasë. Later on, with Ali Pasha's defeat, the region of Himara shrunk to only seven villages. In 1872 a Greek elementary school was operating in Palasa sponsored by a wealthy local, Nasios Dimoulis.

At 1914 Palasa joined the movement of Spyros Spyromilios during the establishment of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus. In September 1916, the provinces of Himarë and Tepelenë became part of the Vlorë prefecture and were placed under the control of the Italian armed forces. The city of Himarë became the official capital of the region and was responsible for the administration of the traditionally Orthodox coastal villages of Palasë, Dhërmi, Kudhës, Qeparo, Vuno and Iljas. With the incorporation of the region in the Albanian state the locals were officially recognized as part of the Greek minority. In 1934 part of the local population asked for intervention by the League of Nations for the opening of a Greek school in the village. However, the minority status in Palasë was revoked during the People's Republic of Albania with the explanation that there were not enough Greek speakers.