Poor and remote, Albania remained decades behind the other Balkan countries in educational and social development. Only some 13% of the population lived in towns. Illiteracy plagued almost the entire population. About 90% of the country's peasants practiced subsistence agriculture, using ancient methods and tools, such as wooden plows. Much of the country's richest farmland lay under water in malaria-infested coastal marshlands. Albania lacked a banking system, a railroad, a modern port, an efficient military, a university, or a modern printing press. The Albanians had Europe's highest birthrate and infant mortality rate, and life expectancy for men was about thirty-eight years.