Priština (Komuna e Prishtinës)
Pristina is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. The city's municipal boundaries in Pristina District form the largest urban center in Kosovo. After Tirana, Pristina has the second largest population of ethnic Albanians and speakers of the Albanian language.
Inhabited by humans since prehistoric times, the area of Pristina was home to several Illyrian peoples. King Bardyllis of the Dardanians brought various tribes together in the 4th century BC and established the Dardanian Kingdom. The heritage of the classical era is represented by the settlement of Ulpiana, which was considered as one of the most influential Roman cities in the Balkan Peninsula.. At this time, the Proto-Albanians were inhabiting the regions of Kosovo and the inner Balkans. After the Roman Empire was divided into a western and an eastern half, the area remained within the Byzantine Empire between the 5th and 9th centuries. When the Slavs arrived in the region, the already living Albanians went up into the mountains while the Slavs were occupying the lowlands. In the middle of the 9th century, it was ceded to the First Bulgarian Empire, before falling again under Byzantine occupation in the early 11th century and then in the late 11th century to the Second Bulgarian Empire.
In the late Middle Ages, Pristina was an important town in Medieval Serbia constituting the royal estate of Serbian kings. Following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, Pristina became an important mining and trading center due to its strategic position near the rich mining town of Novo Brdo. The city was known for its trade fairs and items, such as goatskin and goat hair as well as gunpowder. The first mosque in Pristina was built in the late 14th century while under Serbian rule.
Pristina is the capital and the economic, financial, political and trade center of Kosovo, due to its location in the center of the country. It is the seat of power of the Government of Kosovo, the residences for work of the President and Prime Minister of Kosovo, and the Parliament of Kosovo. Pristina is also the most important transportation junction of Kosovo for air, rail, and roads. Pristina International Airport is the largest airport of the country and among the largest in the region. A range of expressways and motorways, such as the R 6 and R 7, radiate out the city and connect it to Albania and North Macedonia.
The origin of the name of the city is unknown. Eric P. Hamp connected the word with an Indo-European derivative *pṛ-tu- (ford) + *stein (cognate to English stone) which in Proto-Albanian, spoken in the region before the reign of Roman Emperor Trajan (1st-2nd century CE) produced Pristina. Thus the name in the pre-Slavic migrations era would mean in the local Albanian variety "ford-stone" (cf. Stanford).
Ernst Eichler suggests a connection with the Emperor Primus Justinianus ("Justinian the First") who is thought to have built the town of Pristina. He sees the toponym Pristina as a composition of his name.
Marko Snoj proposes the derivation from a Slavic form *Prišьčь, a possessive adjective from the personal name *Prišьkъ, (preserved in the Kajkavian surname Prišek, in the Old Polish personal name Parzyszek, and in the Polish surname Pryszczyk) and the derivational suffix -ina 'belonging to X and his kin'. The name is most likely a patronymic of the personal name *Prišь, preserved as a surname in Sorbian Priš, and Polish Przybysz, a hypocoristic of the Slavic personal name Pribyslavъ. According to Aleksandar Loma, Snoj's etymology would presuppose a rare and relatively late word formation process. According to Loma, the name of the city could be derived from the Proto-Slavic dialectal word *pryščina, meaning "spring (of water)", which is also attested in the Moravian dialects of Czech; it is derived from the verb *pryskati, meaning "to splash" or "to spray" (prskati in modern Serbian).
The inhabitants of the city call themselves Prishtinali in local Gheg Albanian.
By the statue of the municipality of 2010, the municipality and the city are officially named as Prishtina in Albanian and English, and Priština in Serbian.
Inhabited by humans since prehistoric times, the area of Pristina was home to several Illyrian peoples. King Bardyllis of the Dardanians brought various tribes together in the 4th century BC and established the Dardanian Kingdom. The heritage of the classical era is represented by the settlement of Ulpiana, which was considered as one of the most influential Roman cities in the Balkan Peninsula.. At this time, the Proto-Albanians were inhabiting the regions of Kosovo and the inner Balkans. After the Roman Empire was divided into a western and an eastern half, the area remained within the Byzantine Empire between the 5th and 9th centuries. When the Slavs arrived in the region, the already living Albanians went up into the mountains while the Slavs were occupying the lowlands. In the middle of the 9th century, it was ceded to the First Bulgarian Empire, before falling again under Byzantine occupation in the early 11th century and then in the late 11th century to the Second Bulgarian Empire.
In the late Middle Ages, Pristina was an important town in Medieval Serbia constituting the royal estate of Serbian kings. Following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, Pristina became an important mining and trading center due to its strategic position near the rich mining town of Novo Brdo. The city was known for its trade fairs and items, such as goatskin and goat hair as well as gunpowder. The first mosque in Pristina was built in the late 14th century while under Serbian rule.
Pristina is the capital and the economic, financial, political and trade center of Kosovo, due to its location in the center of the country. It is the seat of power of the Government of Kosovo, the residences for work of the President and Prime Minister of Kosovo, and the Parliament of Kosovo. Pristina is also the most important transportation junction of Kosovo for air, rail, and roads. Pristina International Airport is the largest airport of the country and among the largest in the region. A range of expressways and motorways, such as the R 6 and R 7, radiate out the city and connect it to Albania and North Macedonia.
The origin of the name of the city is unknown. Eric P. Hamp connected the word with an Indo-European derivative *pṛ-tu- (ford) + *stein (cognate to English stone) which in Proto-Albanian, spoken in the region before the reign of Roman Emperor Trajan (1st-2nd century CE) produced Pristina. Thus the name in the pre-Slavic migrations era would mean in the local Albanian variety "ford-stone" (cf. Stanford).
Ernst Eichler suggests a connection with the Emperor Primus Justinianus ("Justinian the First") who is thought to have built the town of Pristina. He sees the toponym Pristina as a composition of his name.
Marko Snoj proposes the derivation from a Slavic form *Prišьčь, a possessive adjective from the personal name *Prišьkъ, (preserved in the Kajkavian surname Prišek, in the Old Polish personal name Parzyszek, and in the Polish surname Pryszczyk) and the derivational suffix -ina 'belonging to X and his kin'. The name is most likely a patronymic of the personal name *Prišь, preserved as a surname in Sorbian Priš, and Polish Przybysz, a hypocoristic of the Slavic personal name Pribyslavъ. According to Aleksandar Loma, Snoj's etymology would presuppose a rare and relatively late word formation process. According to Loma, the name of the city could be derived from the Proto-Slavic dialectal word *pryščina, meaning "spring (of water)", which is also attested in the Moravian dialects of Czech; it is derived from the verb *pryskati, meaning "to splash" or "to spray" (prskati in modern Serbian).
The inhabitants of the city call themselves Prishtinali in local Gheg Albanian.
By the statue of the municipality of 2010, the municipality and the city are officially named as Prishtina in Albanian and English, and Priština in Serbian.
Map - Priština (Komuna e Prishtinës)
Map
Country - Kosovo
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In classical antiquity, the central tribe which emerged in the territory of Kosovo were the Dardani, who formed an independent polity known as the Kingdom of Dardania in the 4th century BC. It was annexed by the Roman Empire by the 1st century BC, and for the next millennium, the territory remained part of the Byzantine Empire, whose rule was eroded by Slavic invasions beginning in the 6th–7th century AD. In the centuries thereafter, control of the area alternated between the Byzantines and the First Bulgarian Empire. By the 13th century, Kosovo became the core of the Serbian medieval state, and has also been the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church from the 14th century, when its status was upgraded to a patriarchate. Ottoman expansion in the Balkans in the late 14th and 15th century led to the decline and fall of the Serbian Empire; the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 is considered to be one of the defining moments in Serbian medieval history. The Ottomans fully conquered the region after the Second Battle of Kosovo. The Ottoman Empire ruled the area for almost five centuries until 1912.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Language |
|---|---|
| SQ | Albanian language |
| SR | Serbian language |