Raška region
| Raška | |
|---|---|
| Historical region of Serbiaa | |
 Raška (without northern Montenegro and parts in Kosovo region) and other geographical regions in Serbia |
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| Country |
 Serbia
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Raška (Serbian Cyrillic: Рашка) or Old Raška (Serbian: Стара Рашка/Stara Raška) is a region in south-central Serbia, Kosovo and northern Montenegro. In Serbia, the Raška District, Zlatibor District and Moravica District.
In the Middle Ages, the region was a center of the Serbian Principality and of the Serbian Kingdom whose capital was once the city of Ras (a World Heritage Site) until 1265. In the Early Middle Ages, it had parts of present-day southern Serbia, Kosovo, northern Montenegro, eastern Herzegovina. It has given its name to the Raška municipality and town and Raška District.
The name is derived from the name of the region's most important fort, Ras which first appears in the work de aedificiis of Byzantine Procopius as Arsa prior to the forming of Serbia (Procopius, De aedificiis, IV 4). Ras eventually became the capital district and seat of the first bishopric of Serbia (the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren). The name of the bishopric eventually started to denote the entire area under jurisdiction and later, under Stefan Nemanja, Ras was re-generated as state capital and as such it has at times been used by some in historiography to refer to Serbia from the early 12th to the early 14th century. It had begun its use as an exonym for Serbia in Western European sources in the early 13th century, along with other names such as Dalmatia and Slavonia. The first attested appearance of the name Raška is in the Kotor charter (1186), in which Stefan Nemanja is mentioned as župan of Raška. Soon after Raška (Rascia) became an exonym for Serbia in western sources (Papacy, German, Italian, French etc.) often in conjunction with Serbia (Servia et Rascia). However, that name appears scarcely in medieval Serbian and never in Byzantine works to denote the state.
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