Kaçanik

Kaçanik (Kaçaniku) or Kačanik (Качаник, kâtʃaniːk), is a town and municipality located in the Ferizaj District of southern Kosovo. According to the 2011 census, the town of Kaçanik has 15,634 inhabitants, while the municipality has 33,409 inhabitants. The municipality covers an area of , including the town of Kaçanik and 31 villages. The founder of the town Koxha Sinan Pasha called the town Kaçaniku. In 1660, Turkish writer and traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Kosovo and wrote that the town's name derived from the Turkish word kaçanlar in reference to a group of Albanian bandits that operated in Üsküb and used the region of Kaçanik as a hideout. As the Kaçanik area was used as a hideout for the Kachaks, Koca Sinan Pasha built the town fortress to keep out the Kachaks. The region of Kaçanik was one of the pathways, which were employed during Central European (akin to the Lusatian culture) migrations in the southern Balkans between 1200 and 1150 BCE. Roman era monuments include an altar that dates to 158–9 CE and is dedicated to a deity named Andinus (Deo Andino). The name Andinus appears among the central Illyrian and Dalmatian names, but the worship of Andinus seems to have been a local cult of southwestern Dardani as it doesn't appear in other parts of Illyria or the Roman Empire. After 9th century part of kingdom Raška and empire Serbia. Kaçanik was captured by the Ottomans in the 1420s. At that time Kaçanik was only a village registered by the Ottomans in 1455 defter as nahiyah. Kaçanik was founded by Koca Sinan Pasha, who erected a tower, the town mosque which exists even today, a public kitchen for the poor (imaret), a school near the mosque, two hane (inns similar to caravanserais), one Turkish bath (hammam), the town fortress and a few mills on the Lepenci river. Kaçanik became known administratively as a town by the end of the 16th century, and up to year 1891 it was a part of the Ottoman Sanjak of Üsküb, which again belonged to the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.