Golemi Dol
Albanian-majority village in Serbia's Preševo Valley borderland—90% Albanian population alongside Serb minority in the Balkans' primary transit corridor.
Golemi Dol (Serbian: Големи Дол; Albanian: Golemidoll) translates as 'Great Valley,' a toponym describing the landscape of the Preševo municipality in Serbia's Pčinja District. This village sits within the Preševo Valley—a geopolitical region along Serbia's border with Kosovo that carries pan-European Corridor X and the E75 highway, the primary north-south route through the Balkans.
The 2002 census recorded 294 residents, with 266 (90.47%) ethnic Albanians and 28 (9.52%) Serbs. This ethnic composition places Golemi Dol among several Preševo municipality settlements where Serbs maintain a significant minority presence alongside Albanian majorities—including Buštranje, Reljan, Strezovce, Trnava, and Čukarka. Like species sharing overlapping territories, these communities have developed patterns of coexistence shaped by the valley's function as a transit corridor rather than a defensible enclave.
The Preševo Valley represents the center of Serbian Albania—Albanians comprise 89% of Preševo municipality and 54.6% of neighboring Bujanovac. The valley's importance stems from its geographic function: the Preševska Moravica river basin channels traffic from its source near Preševo town to its confluence with the South Morava at Bujanovac. By 2026, Golemi Dol will continue navigating the tensions inherent in ethnic borderlands, with its future shaped by broader developments in Serbia-Kosovo relations and EU integration processes affecting the entire region.