Skopje
The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; remains of Neolithic settlements have been found within the old Kale Fortress that overlooks the modern city centre. Originally a Paeonian city, Scupi became the capital of Dardania in the second century BC. On the eve of the 1st century AD, the settlement was seized by the Romans and became a military camp. When the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves in 395 AD, Scupi came under Byzantine rule from Constantinople. During much of the early medieval period, the town was contested between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire, whose capital it was between 972 and 992.
From 1282, the town was part of the Serbian Empire, and acted as its capital city from 1346 to 1371. In 1392, Skopje was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, who called it Üsküb (اسکوب). The town stayed under Ottoman control for over 500 years, serving as the capital of the pashasanjak of Üsküp and later the Vilayet of Kosovo. In 1912, it was annexed by the Kingdom of Serbia during the Balkan Wars. During the First World War the city was seized by the Kingdom of Bulgaria, and, after the war, it became part of the newly formed Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the capital of Vardarska Banovina. In the Second World War the city was again captured by Bulgaria and in 1945 became the capital of SR Macedonia, a federated state within the Yugoslavia. The city developed rapidly, but this was interrupted in 1963 when it was hit by a disastrous earthquake.
Skopje is on the upper course of the Vardar River, and is on a major north–south Balkan route between Belgrade and Athens. It is a centre for metal-processing, chemical, timber, textile, leather, and printing industries. Industrial development of the city has been accompanied by development of the trade, logistics, and banking sectors, as well as an emphasis on the fields of transportation, culture and sport. According to the last official census from 2021, Skopje had a population of 422,540 inhabitants in its urban area and 526,502 in ten municipalities that form the city and, beside Skopje, include many other less urbanized and rural settlements some of which are 20 km away from the city itself or even border the neighbouring Kosovo.
The name of the city comes from Scupi, which was the name of an early Paeonian settlement (later the capital of Dardania and subsequently a Roman colony) nearby. The meaning of that name is unknown, but there is a hypothesis that it derives from the Greek ἐπίσκοπος, (lit. "watcher, observer"), referring to its position on a high place, from which the whole place could be observed. The Albanian name of the city, Shkup-i, directly evolved from the ancient name Scupi in agreement with the Albanian phonetic system, providing evidence of an earlier Albanian settlement in the area.
After Antiquity, Scupi was occupied by various people and consequently its name was translated several times in several languages. Thus Scupi became "Skopje", and later "Üsküb" (اسكوب) for the Turks. This name was adapted in Western languages in "Uskub" or "Uskup", and these two appellations were used in the Western world until 1912. Some Western sources also cite "Scopia" and "Skopia". Scopia is in fact the name of the city in Aromanian. Nowadays, the local Albanian population call the city "Shkup" and "Shkupi", the latter being the definite form.
When Vardar Macedonia was annexed by the Kingdom of Serbia in 1912, the city officially became "Skoplje" (Скопље) and this name was adopted by many languages. To reflect local pronunciation, the city's name was eventually spelled as "Skopje" (Скопје) after the Second World War, when standard Macedonian became the official language of the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
Map - Skopje
Map
Country - Republic_of_Macedonia
The region's history begins with the kingdom of Paeonia, a mixed Thraco-Illyrian polity. In the late sixth century BC, the area was subjugated by the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then incorporated into the Kingdom of Macedonia in the fourth century BC. The Roman Republic conquered the region in the second century BC and made it part of the larger province of Macedonia. The area remained part of the Byzantine Empire, but was often raided and settled by Slavic tribes beginning in the sixth century of the Christian era. Following centuries of contention between the Bulgarian, Byzantine, and Serbian Empires, it was part of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-14th until the early 20th century, when, following the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, the modern territory of North Macedonia came under Serbian rule.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
MKD | Macedonian denar | ден | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
SQ | Albanian language |
MK | Macedonian language |
SR | Serbian language |
TR | Turkish language |