Klek (Zrenjanin)

Klek Клек
Village
The Orthodox Church under construction.
Klek Location of Klek within Serbia
Coordinates: 45°25′11″N 20°28′29″E / 45.41972°N 20.47472°E / 45.41972; 20.47472Coordinates: 45°25′11″N 20°28′29″E / 45.41972°N 20.47472°E / 45.41972; 20.47472
Country	Serbia
Province	Vojvodina
District	Central Banat
Elevation	74 m (243 ft)
Population (2002)
• Klek	2,959
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	23211
Area code(s)	+381(0)23
Car plates	ZR

Klek (Serbian Cyrillic: Клек) is a village located in the Zrenjanin municipality, Central Banat District, Vojvodina, Serbia. The village has a Serb ethnic majority (90.80%), and its population is 2,959 (2002 census).

In Serbian the village is known as Клек (Клек), in Romanian as Clec, in Hungarian as Bégafő, and in German as Klek or Klekk.

The village of Klek was founded in 1765 and was initially settled by Romanians who originated from Pomorišje. After Romanians, Serbs settled in the village as well, but they were resettled to the Military Frontier in 1783–84. After that, the village was settled by the German (Donauschwaben, Banatschwaben) colonists. The German colonists initially gathered in the city of Ulm and other areas on the Danube and from there, they were brought, via the Danube, to the Banat. The original village of Klek was founded on a different spot, further to the north from the position of the current village, near the River Bega, on a swampy marsh formed by the Temesch and Bega River, in the Banat Region.

In 1718–1723, the construction of the Bega canal began. The Bega Canal was the first navigational canal, established between the places of Temeschwar and present-day Klek. Digging of the canal, namely the construction of the artificial riverbed of the Bega River started in 1718. The works started in the southeast of Temeschwar (today in Romania), and went all the way to present-day Klek, in the length of about 70 km (about 37 km in present-day Romania). The digging lasted for five years.