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Concept
Gjakova
Summary
Gjakova is the seventh largest city of Kosovo and seat of Gjakova Municipality and Gjakova District. The city has 40,827 inhabitants, while the municipality has 94,556 inhabitants.
Geographically, it is located in the south-western part of Kosovo, about halfway between the cities of Peja and Prizren. It is approximately inland from the Adriatic Sea.
The city is situated some north-east of Tirana, north-west of Skopje, west of the capital Pristina, south of Belgrade and east of Podgorica.
The city of Gjakova has been populated since the prehistoric era. During the Ottoman period, Gjakova served as a trading centre on the route between Shkodra and Constantinople. It was also one of the most developed trade centres at that time in the Balkans.
The Albanian name for the city is Gjakova, while the Serbian name is Đakovica with the common -ica diminutive placename suffix. There are several theories on the origin of the village name, such as from the personal name Jakov; the Serbian word đak (pupil); or from the Albanian word for "blood" (gjak).
The "Jakov theory" derives its name from Jakov, a little known nobleman in the service of lord Vuk Branković who founded and ruled the city, and whose coins have been found, signed "Jakov". According to local Albanians, the name was derived from the name Jak (Jakov), with the village name meaning "Jakov's field".
Gjakova was mentioned as a village with a market in the 1485 Ottoman defter, and had 54 households. The local Albanians developed it into a town in the 16th century. It has been a settlement with an ethnic Albanian majority since its foundation, having grown around the founding structures built by Hadim Suleyman Efendi, a politically important local Albanian. Edith Durham noted that Gjakova was founded by members of the Albanian Mërturi tribe in the 15th-16th centuries, specifically by the families of two men descended from Bitush Mërturi - Vula and Mërtur. The descendants of the Vula family were still present during the time of her visit to Albania in the first decade of the 20th century.
Official source
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