During my Europe tour, I asked about Albanians in Slovakia. My caption said “around 1,000” and cited two census figures. One was wrong, and the two measures did not establish a single community total.
The official 2021 census table records 644 people declaring Albanian ethnicity and 678 declaring Albanian as their mother tongue. These are 2021 census results, not a count of everyone with Albanian roots living in Slovakia today.
Where the wrong number came from
I gave 1,056 as the Albanian mother-tongue figure. In this table, 1,056 belongs to Romanian mother tongue. The correct Albanian figure is 678. The original caption should not be used as the source for that number.
How to check the table yourself
The PDF is a cross-table: ethnicity runs across the columns and mother tongue down the rows. Find the Albanian ethnicity column and read its total at the bottom. Then find the Albanian mother-tongue row and read its total at the right.
Do not add those totals. A person can appear in both measures, and language and ethnicity answer different questions. Neither figure, by itself, tells us the number of Albanian citizens, people of Kosovo origin, or everyone who identifies with Albanian roots.
The question I still wanted to ask
My travel post was also an invitation to hear from the community. A census table cannot tell me where people gather, which public events welcome newcomers or how someone maintains a connection with home.
If you live in Slovakia, you can respond to the original travel post with your city or a public community event. That would help answer the human part of the question without pretending the census tells the whole story.