Niš, Serbia

Niš is one of the oldest cities in the Balkans and with around 250,000 residents is the third largest in Serbia and the capital of the Nišava District. It is located in southern Serbia, at the crossroads of the most important Balkan and European routes connecting Europe with the Middle East. In Niš, the main road, which runs from the north via the Morava valley, forks southward via the South Morava-Vardar valley (towards Thessaloniki and Athens), while the east road runs through the Nišava-Marica valley towards Sofia, Istanbul and the Middle East. In the Roman period, the second road was called the Via militaris, whereas in the Middle Ages it was called the Constantinople Road.

The wider area around Niš has been inhabited since the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, to which prehistoric findings from Bubanj and Humska Čuka bear witness. The Dardani, Celts (Gauls) and Illyrians lived in Niš in the pre-Roman period. The Celts named the town Naissus (City of the Nymphs). In Roman times, Niš was a powerful military stronghold in which one of the greatest rulers of the Roman Empire, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, better known as Constantine the Great, was born in 274. The city became an important economic, military and administrative centre under his rule. The discovery of early Christian graves and a basilica (2^nd to 4^th centuries), as well as Constantine’s recognition of Christianity as the official religion in the Roman Empire (313), provides evidence of the city’s ancient Christian tradition. Between the 6^th and 10^th centuries, Niš was repeatedly attacked and held at various times by the Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgarians and Hungarians.