Preševo valley

The Preševo Valley (Serbo-Croatian: Прешевска долина, Preševska dolina; Albanian: Lugina e Preshevës) is a region in southern Serbia composed of the municipalities of Bujanovac, Medveđa and Preševo. Geopolitically, the region is the center of the Albanian community in Serbia (not counting Kosovo) with Albanians comprising 54.6% of Bujanovac and 89% of Preševo.

In Albanian the area is referred to as Lugina e Preshevës and in Serbian as Preševska dolina. Albanians also sometimes call the region eastern Kosovo, which makes reference to the Kosovo Vilayet, from which this area was incorporated into Serbia in 1913. Because of Albanian demands for territorial autonomy, the use of "Preševo Valley" is somewhat politically loaded. In Serbian official statements, the area is usually referred to as the "territory of municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa".

Geographically, the Preševo Valley is coterminous with the river basin of Preševska Moravica from its source near the town of Preševo to the confluence with South Morava at Bujanovac. It is part of the Morava/Vardar North-South route across the Balkans, which follows the flows of Great Morava and South Morava through Serbia. This route carries the pan-European corridor X and E75. The importance of this route to the Serbia has increased since 1999, when the main alternative route, through Pristina, became unusable due to the Kosovo War and subsequent loss of Serbian control over Kosovo.

In 1938, during the colonisation of Kosovo, Preševo was designated in the Turkish-Yugoslav Convention as one of the areas whose population would be forced to migrate to Turkey.

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