The town of Berat, overshadowed to the east by mount Tomorr (2400m), is built on an ancient Illyrian dwelling site, which goes back to the sixth century B.C. Its innumerable monuments and beautiful and characteristic architecture of its houses have proclaimed Berat, a museum town. Much of the city is built on terraces in the steep hills overlooking the Osum river. The city has many historical monuments, including mosques dating from the 15th to 19th centuries and an 18th-century seven-arched stone bridge. A 13th-century citadel built along a ridge high above the river gorge houses a museum and several old churches.

The castle and its fortified walls are interrelated just like a mosaic where various stages of buildings such as " Kala ", " Mangalem ", " Gorice " which are settled on hills units of the town make up an impressive example of our genius creative people. Gorica, on the far side of the river ; Mangalem, on the fortress side of the river; and the residential quarter within the fortress (known as Kalaja). The quarter Gorica in Berat, one of the oldest towns in Albania.

Berat was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List 2008, as well-preserved southern Albanian town bearing outstanding testimony to the Ottoman period in the Balkans.

The more underprivileged classes of society lived in the district Gorica in earlier time. Aromuns, Greeks and Jews preferred this quarter. The church of the sacred Spyridon, the protection saint of Corfu, reminds of the Greek residents of Gorica. Here even more than in Mangalem the time seems to stand still. Skanderbeg had his headquarters in the woods around Gorica when he together with Italian mercenaries tried unavailingly to defend the town against the Ottomans.