Map - Sazan Island (Ishulli i Sazanit)

Sazan (Sazani) is an Albanian uninhabited island in the Mediterranean Sea. The largest of Albania's islands, it is a designated military exclusion zone; it lies in a strategically important location between the Strait of Otranto and the mouth of the Bay of Vlorë, marking the border between the Adriatic and Ionian seas. The island has a surface area of 5.7 km2. It is 4.8 km long and 2 km wide, and its coastline measures about 15 km.

In 2010, 2721.87 ha of the island's surrounding marine area was designated as the Karaburun-Sazan Marine Park. In clear weather, Sazan is sometimes visible from the coast of Salento, Italy, to its west. The island has been open to the public since July 2015.

Sazan was known as Sason (Σάσων) to the ancient Greeks, and Saso to the ancient Romans. Pseudo Scylax mentioned it in the Periplus. And Polybius wrote that there had been a military encounter there in 215 BC between the forces of Philip V of Macedon and the Romans. The island was part of the Roman Empire, and later came under Byzantine rule. In 1279, it was captured by the Anjou of Naples, and in the 14th century it was held by Albanian lords, often under the protection of the Republic of Venice.

Around 1400, the Ottomans captured it, but by 1696 it was controlled by the Venetians. In 1815, it came under the protection of Britain along with the Ionian Islands, which were made an autonomous republic.

In 1864, the island was ceded to Greece along with the rest of the Ionian Islands. It was considered part of Diapontia Islands. But Greece did not occupy it, and it came under the de facto control of the Ottomans. It was not until the First Balkan War, in 1912, that Greece landed soldiers on the island and formally claimed it, calling it Sasona (Σάσωνα). After the end of the Second Balkan War in 1913, Italy and Austria-Hungary pressed Greece to evacuate the southern part of modern Albania and the island. Due to the risk of starting a war with Italy, Greece evacuated it.

Italy in turn occupied it on 30 October 1914, and established a military commander on the island, which is called Saseno in Italian. This was later ratified on 26 April 1915 by the secret Treaty of London. After World War I, Albania formally ceded the island to Italy on 2 September 1920 as part of the Albano-Italian protocol.

The island was part of Italy from 1920 until after World War II, administratively part of Lagosta, in the province of Zara. In those years the Italian authorities built a lighthouse and some naval fortifications, and populated the island with a few families of fishermen relocated from Apulia. The island was united to the Italian Governatorate of Dalmatia in 1941 during World War II and ceded to Albania on 10 February 1947, under the postwar peace treaty with Italy.