Biljaca
Preševo Valley borderland—Biljača's 2,036 residents (mostly Albanian) straddle Serbia-Kosovo lines, defined by the ethnic boundary it occupies.
Biljača exists because the Preševo Valley needed settlements along the route to Kosovo—and because ethnic boundaries rarely align with municipal ones. This village of 2,036 in Bujanovac municipality sits in the southernmost corner of central Serbia, where the Pčinja District meets the Kosovo border. The demographic profile tells the political story: of those 2,036 residents (2002 census), 1,704 were ethnic Albanians, 163 Serbs, and the remainder various minorities.
The Bujanovac municipality occupies contested ground. The Preševo Valley—comprising Preševo, Bujanovac, and Medveđa—has an ethnic Albanian majority but remained part of Serbia when Kosovo declared independence in 2008. Biljača's position on this demographic frontier shapes everything from school languages to political representation to the practical questions of which markets villagers use and which roads they travel.
By 2026, villages like Biljača navigate multiple sovereignties. Official administration comes from Belgrade; economic ties often point toward Pristina; cultural and family connections span the border that diplomats debate and residents cross. The village persists not despite this complexity but because of it—its location making it simultaneously marginal to multiple centers and essential to none, a settlement defined by the lines it straddles.