Skopje travel guide — Skopje tourism and travel information

Skopje travel guide

about Skopje

Skopje (Macedonian Скопје) is the capital city of the F.Y.R.O.M.. It has 600,000 inhabitants (2000 estimate) and is located on the upper Vardar river. It is the political, economic and cultural centre of Macedonia and a major centre for the metal-processing, chemical, timber, textile, leather and printing industries. Industrial development has been accompanied by an intensive development of internal and external trade and banking, as well as activities in the fields of culture and sport.

Skopje was not known to the Ancient Greeks, and appears to have been founded in the 3rd century BC by the Dardanians, a people on the fringes of the Kingdom of Macedon. In Roman times there was town on the site called Justiniana Prima, but this was destroyed by an earthquake in 518. The town was refounded, perhaps by the early Romanians (or Vlachs), and in Byzantine times it was known as Skupi. Skopie often changed hands between the Byzantines and the Bulgarians in medieval times until it was conquered by the Serbs in the late 13th century. It was captured by the Ottomans in 1392 and known by the Turkish name Üsküb or Uskup during the half-millennium of Ottoman rule.

Ottoman Üsküb was the capital of the vilayet (district) of Kosovo. The Turkish writer Dilger Zede visited the city in the 17th century and wrote: "I travelled for a long time across that country of Rumelija and I saw a lot of beautiful cities and I was amazed from the Alah blessings, but not one has impressed and delighted me so much as the heavens city of Skopje across which passes the river Vardar." In 1689, however, it was burned by the Austrian general Picolomini.

In 1905 Üsküb had a population of about 32,000, a mixture of Serbs, Bulgarians, Turks, Albanians and Gypsies. It was the seat of an Orthodox Greek archbishop, of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Albanians and of a Bulgarian bishop. In 1910 Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, later to become famous as Mother Teresa, was born in Üsküb into a Catholic Albanian family.

In 1913 the city fell to the Serbs during the Balkan War and was ceded to Serbia, which became the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 and Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. It was under Bulgarian rule during both World Wars but in 1945 it became the capital of the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. In 1963 Skopje was struck by a major earthquake, and numerous cultural monuments were seriously damaged.

Near cities to Skopje

• Tetovo travel guide 39 km
• Veles travel guide 45 km
• Kukes travel guide 86 km
• Peshkopi travel guide 89 km
• Bitola travel guide 110 km
• Struga travel guide 110 km
• Ohrid travel guide 110 km
• Burrel travel guide 130 km
• Librazhd travel guide 130 km
• Florina travel guide 130 km

Near webcams to Skopje

• Skopje webcam 2.3 km
• Tirana webcam 150 km
• Thessaloniki webcam 200 km
• Thessaloniki webcam 200 km
• Dubrovnik webcam 280 km
• Dubrovnik - airport webcam 290 km
• Belgrade webcam 320 km
• Vrsac webcam 350 km
• Fengari webcam 390 km
• Santo Spirito webcam 400 km

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Skopje travel services

cheap flights to Skopje

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Skopje real estate

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Skopje travel books

Skopje travel guide books

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Skopje maps and atlases

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