Skopje is the capital and by far the largest city of the Republic of Macedonia, as well as the political, cultural, economical and academic centre of the country. It was known from the Roman period on under the name Scupi. The city developed rapidly after the Second World War, but this trend was interrupted in 1963 when it was hit by a disastrous earthquake. Today Skopje is a modern city with a range of cultural monuments.

Skopje is located at , on the upper course of the Vardar River and is located on a major north-south Balkan route between Central Europe and Athens. It has 506,926 inhabitants (2002 census). It is a major centre for the metal-processing, chemical, timber, textile, leather, and printing industries but has suffered many closures since 1991. Industrial development of the city has been accompanied by developments of the trade and banking sectors, as well as an emphasis on the fields of culture and sport.

Name

The name of the city in Macedonian language is Skopje (Скопје) and in Albanian Shkupi (also see other names of Skopje).The city has an ancient Greek name meaning lookout tower, since the area was at the edge of the ancient macedonian empire. In Roman times the town is mentioned under the name Skupi. The Roman Skupi must not be confused with Justiniana Prima whose remains can be visited in the vicinity of the Serbian town of Leskovac. The Turkish name of the city is Üsküb and it was known as Uskub or Uskup in most Western European languages during the period of Ottoman rule.Room A. Placenames of the World: Origins and Meanings of the Names for Over 5000 Natural Features, p.335. The Serbian name for the city is Скопље (Skoplje) and it was known as such in English during the time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

History

Classical era

The site of modern Skopje has been inhabited since at least 3500 BC; remains of Neolithic settlements have been found within the old Kale fortress that overlooks the modern city centre. Skopje was known to the ancient Greeks as Skupi, a name given to a settlement to the northwest of the city centre in the area of the modern suburb of Zlokuќani. The settlement appears to have been founded around the 3rd century BC by the Dardanians, a people on the fringes of the Kingdom of Macedon.

Skupi came under Roman rule from 148 BC, when it became a seat of government within the Roman province of Moesia superior. From 395 AD, it passed into the hands of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire.'''

Medieval era

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I was born near Skupi, at Tauresium, in 483. In 518, Skupi was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake. Justinian came to the aid of its inhabitants by founding a new settlement called Justiniana Prima norther from the site of Skupi, near to Leskovac. However, Justiniana and the remnants of Skupi were destroyed by invading Slavic peoples at the end of the 7th century. The Slavs renamed the site as Skopje but were eventually pushed out by the Byzantines.

During much of the early medieval period, the town was contested between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire. It was a capital of Byzantine administrative region (katepanat) Bulgaria after the fall the First Bulgarian Empire in 1018. Skopje was a thriving trading settlement but fell into decline after being hit by another devastating earthquake at the end of the 11th century. It was a capital of the estate of the Bulgarian feudal lord Konstantin Asen in the middle of 13th century. The town was conquered by the Serbs in 1282. In 1346 it was named the capital of the Serbian Empire of Stefan Dušan.

The Ottoman city

In 1392, three years after the Serbian defeat in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, Skopje was captured by the Ottoman Empire. For the next five hundred years it was known by the Turkish name Üsküb or Üsküp. Ottoman Üsküb was the capital of the Vilayet of Kosovo (district of Kosovo), which occupied a much greater area than the modern region of Kosovo.

The city's character changed markedly during this period. The Ottomans imported Islam and built many mosques and other typically Ottoman buildings, such as hammans (baths) and travellers' inns, some of which still exist today. Many Sephardi Jews expelled from Spain also settled in the city, adding to its ethnic variety.The medieval city was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1555, but it soon recovered and prospered. By the 17th century, its population was put at between 30,000-60,000. The Turkish writer Dulgar Dede visited Üsküb during this period and wrote: "I travelled for many years across that country of Rumelia and I saw a many beautiful cities and I was amazed at Allah's blessings, but not one impressed and delighted as much as the heavenly city of Skopje across which passes the Vardar River."

In 1689, however, Skopje was burned by the Austrian general Engelberto d'Ugo Piccolomini – ostensibly to eradicate an outbreak of cholera, but quite possibly to revenge the Ottomans' 1683 attack on Vienna.

The city's fortunes waned over the next 200 years and its population shrank to only about 10,000 people by the middle of the 19th century. It revived after 1873 with the building of the railway from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, which passed through Skopje.

In the 20th century

Since the earlier attempts to obtain a separate church in the 1890s had failed, Macedonians continued to be counted as Bulgarians or Serbs, depending on their church affiliation. By 1905, Skopje had a population of approximately 32,000, which was comprised of a mixture of ethnic groups, including Macedonians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Roma, Serbs and Turks. The city was the seat of a Greek Orthodox archbishop, an archbishop of the Roman Catholic faith, and a Bulgarian Orthodox bishop. In 1910, the Catholic nun, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, later to become famous as Mother Teresa, was born in Skopje.

The city became a major centre of rebellion against the weakening Ottoman Empire, and in 1903 it was a key player in the unsuccessful Ilinden Rising against Ottoman rule. The Ottomans were expelled from the city in August 12, 1912 by the joint effort of Macedonian and Albanian forces. Several months later the city was captured by the Serbs at the beginning of First Balkan War.

In 1913, the allies in the First Balkan War fell out with each other and launched the Second Balkan War over the division of the spoils. Serbia retained control of Skopje, with the Vardar valley being incorporated into Serbia. This lasted until October 1915, when Bulgaria joined the Central Powers and seized much of Serbian-ruled Macedonia.The city was restored to Serbia at end of the World War I in 1918, when it became part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1929). The city was occupied by Bulgaria rule during both World Wars, but on its liberation in 1944 it became the capital of the new People's Republic of Macedonia. Following the wars, Skopje and the rest of Yugoslav Macedonia was incorporated into Tito's Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

On 26 July 1963, Skopje was struck by another major earthquake, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, which killed over 1,000 people and made another 120,000 homeless. Eighty percent of the city was destroyed by the earthquake, and numerous cultural monuments were seriously damaged. The losses from the quake amounted to a massive 150% of Macedonia's GNP at the time and 15% of Yugoslavia's GNP. A major international relief effort saw the city rebuilt quickly, though much of its old Ottoman aspect was lost in the process. The ruins of the old Skopje train station which was destroyed in the earthquake remain today as a memorial to the victims along with an adjacent museum.

Under Yugoslav rule Skopje grew rapidly and became a major industrial centre for the southern Balkans region and south eastern Europe. In 1991 the Yugoslav federation broke up and Skopje became the capital of the independent Republic of Macedonia. Greece objected to the use of the name Macedonia by the new state, and imposed an economic blockade on the country, which severely damaged Skopje's economy by closing its access to the sea through Thessaloniki (Solun). The blockade was lifted in 1995 following an agreement between the two governments on the name issue which still hasn't been resolved

Demographics

According to the 2002 census2002 census results in English and Macedonian (PDF), the population of Skopje was 506,926 people. The main ethnic group are Macedonians - 338,358, who make up 66.75% of the population, followed by Albanians - 103,891 (20.49%), Roma - 23,475 (4.63%), Serbs - 14,298 (2.82%), Turks - 8595 (1.70%), Bosniaks - 7585 (1.50%) and Aromanians (Vlachs) - 2557 (0.50%) and others - 8167 (1.61%)

97.5% of the population over the age of 10 is literate.

Tourist attractions

The church of Saint Panteleimon in Nerezi near Skopje is a superb example of the Comnenian art on the all-Byzantine level. Commissioned by several members of the royal Comnenus family, the church was not finished until 1164. Nerezi is famous for its frescoes, representing a pinnacle of the 12th-century trend of intimacy and spirituality. They are often compared with similarly delicate works by Giotto, who worked 140 years later. These murals underwent serious 19th-century overpainting but were restored lately.

A ancient Roman aqueduct survives to the north of the city. One of stone bridges connecting both side of Vardar River dates back to the reign of Stefan Dušan. This bridge is not to be confused with the more famous Stone Bridge in the city square built under the patronage of Sultan Mehmed III the Conqueror between 1451 and 1469, today featured as the emblem of the city of Skopje. Within Skopje, there are notable buildings from the Ottoman rule such as the Kuršumli Han (medieval Turkish inn) and several mosques.

Gallery

Image:Nerezi.jpg|Lamentation of Christ, a Nerezi fresco (1164).Image:Nationaltheaterskopje.jpg|The National Theater of Skopje before its destruction in the 1963 earthquake.Image:Armyhouseskopje.jpg|Army house in 1920's SkopjeImage:341 4113 IMG resize.jpg|The Macedonia street in the Skopje central city square.Image:Skopje.jpg|Macedonia square in Skopje

Trivia

Below is the list of famous people born in Skopje or its surroundings:
*Justinian I
*Mother Teresa
*Darko Pancev
*Milčo Mančevski
*Labina Mitevska
*Ismet Ramicevic

Sister cities

* Ankara, Turkey
* Dresden, Germany
* Dijon, France
* Roubaix, France
* Tempe, Arizona, USA
* Waremme, Belgium
* Bradford, United Kingdom
* Istanbul, Turkey
* Craiova, Romania
* Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
* East York Toronto, Canada