Pozega
Ottoman fire, rope and stake, perfect circle—Požega's 1805 rebuild created Serbia's most unusual square, now anchoring Western Serbia's metal manufacturing cluster.
Požega exists because an engineer drew a circle with a rope—and because the Ottoman fire of 1805 created a blank slate. When Miloš Obrenović sent a state engineer to rebuild the burned town, legend says he drove a stake, tied a rope, and traced the main square: a perfect circle, unique in Serbian urban planning. After 2012 renovation, this circular plaza was named the most beautiful square in Serbia and the most successful architectural achievement in the region.
The town of 12,000 sits at the crossroads of Western Serbia's most important roads, in the Zlatibor District where the Metal Cluster of Western Serbia was founded in 2014. The cluster unites 11 small and medium enterprises from Požega, Arilje, and Užice—municipalities with long traditions in metalworking now repositioning for export markets. The Railway Museum, one of the oldest in Europe, preserves the narrow-gauge heritage: the famous RAMA locomotive (oldest in the world), the first Serbian train "001 Milan" from 1882, and the American "two-headed dragon" from the Great War.
Between the circular square and the railway museum lies Požega's identity: a planned town in a region of organic growth, a transportation node that remembers when rail mattered. By 2026, the metal cluster's export orientation will test whether Western Serbia's manufacturing tradition can compete with Chinese investment flooding other Serbian regions.