Lipljan

Lipljan
Town and municipality
Lipljan town park
Emblem
Location of the municipality of Lipljan within Kosovo
Coordinates: 42°32′N 21°06′E / 42.533°N 21.100°E / 42.533; 21.100
Country	Kosovo[a]
District	District of Pristina
Government
• Mayor	Imri Ahmeti (LDK)
• Municipal	338 km2 (131 sq mi)
Elevation	563 m (1,847 ft)
Population  (2011)
• Urban	6,870
• Municipal	57,605
• Municipal density	170/km2 (440/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal code	14000
Area code(s)	+383 38
Car plates	01
Website	kk.rks-gov.net/lipjan

Lipljan (Serbian Cyrillic: Липљан) or Lipjan (definite Albanian form: Lipjani) is a town and municipality located in the Pristina District of Kosovo.^[a] According to the 2011 census, the town of Lipljan has 6,870 inhabitants, while the municipality has 57,605 inhabitants.

Name[]

According to one theory proposed by Croatian toponomy expert Petar Skok, the name of the town, Lipljan, is derived from the Serbian lipa, "linden tree", referring to the local foliage.^[1] The name lipa is often used in South Slavic toponyms.^[1] However, a rival theory holds that the town's name derives from Ulpiana, the Dardanian and Roman era settlement it succeeded, possibly due to either a Ul- to Li- shift seen elsewhere in Roman toponyms, or via folk etymology with Slavic lipa.^[2]

The Roman city of Ulpiana was located near Lipljan and it was named in honor of the Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus. In the early Middle Ages in was part of the Bulgarian Empire and a diocese of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. The neo-Latin form Lypenion for the city occurs for the first time in a Byzantine text from 1018 AD that confirmed the town as an episcopal seat of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid following the Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria in the same year.^[3]

History[]

Roman period[]

Ulpiana played an important role in the development of the most important cities in the Roman province of Dardania.

Middle Ages[]

Lipljan was the seat of medieval Eparchy of Lipljan that existed up to the beginning of 18 century. The Gračanica monastery was built in 1321, on the ruins of two older churches.

The town of Lipljan is located on the banks of the Sitnica River, not far from Priština. During the 1320s or 1330s, a single-nave church of modest dimensions dedicated to the Presentation of the Virgin was built there atop of the remains of an older site. After 1336 it was given to the Pyrgos^{[disambiguation needed]} of the Ascension of Christ in Hilandar as a gift. In the mid-14th century, an unknown ktetor had the church decorated. At the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, a new layer of frescoes was made.

Lipjan is the birthplace of an Albanian Noble Lekë Dukagjini, who was born here in 1410. He was a close friend of the Albanian military commander and ruler, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg and a participant in the Albanian League of Lezhë.

Demographics[]

According to the last official census done in 2011, the municipality of Lipljan has 57,605 inhabitants. Based on the population estimates from the Kosovo Agency of Statistics in 2016, the municipality has 57,415 inhabitants.

The ethnic composition of the municipality:

Municipality[]

See also[]

• Municipalities of Kosovo
• Cities and towns in Kosovo
• Populated places in Kosovo
• Staro Gracko massacre

Notes and references[]

Notes

References

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lipljan.

• OSCE Profile of Lipjan

Coordinates: 42°31′48″N 21°08′19″E / 42.53000°N 21.13861°E / 42.53000; 21.13861