Doljevac
Medieval fortress over Serbia's underdeveloped vegetable belt—Doljevac's 1,494-person town exemplifies Toplica's depopulation despite spa tourism next door.
Doljevac exists because the Toplica valley needed a market town—and because medieval Koprijan fortress needed a settlement beneath it. This small municipality in the Nišava District (15,837 inhabitants in 2022, town population just 1,494) is one of Serbia's most underdeveloped. The fortress ruins on the hill above town, protected as a cultural monument, overlook an agricultural economy where 87% of used land is arable: wheat, corn, early vegetables, potatoes, melons, plums, and sour cherries.
The Toplica District surrounding Doljevac is 57.7% forest and only 10.9% agricultural—a mountain-basin-valley microregion dependent on the spa tourism that has made neighboring Prolom Banja famous for therapeutic mineral waters. Geotourism development builds on this foundation, marketing the district's exceptional natural heritage. But the demographic trajectory is bleak: this is depopulated Serbia, where young people leave for Niš and Belgrade, where the agricultural economy cannot sustain the communities it once fed.
By 2026, Doljevac faces the arithmetic of rural decline. Early vegetables and sour cherries require labor that aging farmers cannot provide; spa tourism employs only so many; the medieval fortress draws visitors who spend money in Niš rather than here. The municipality's underdevelopment is path-dependent: distance from highways, distance from industry, distance from the investment flows that might reverse the drain.