Lipjan
The town's name derives from "Ulpiana", the Dardanian and Roman era settlement that preceded Lipjan, possibly due to either a "Ul-" to "Li-" shift seen elsewhere in Roman toponyms. Selami Pulaha states that the shift from "Ulpiana" to "Lipjan" is in accordance with early Albanian phonetic rules, and must therefore have been inhabited by Albanians to reach its current form. Croatian linguist Petar Skok believed the name "Lipljan" was derived from the Serbian "lipa", "linden tree", to refer to the local foliage, and that the name "lipa" is often used in South Slavic toponyms. The Roman city of Ulpiana was located near Lipjan and it was named in honor of the Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus. In the early Middle Ages in was part of the Bulgarian Empire and a diocese of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. The neo-Latin form "Lypenion" for the city occurs for the first time in a Byzantine text from 1018 AD that confirmed the town as an episcopal seat of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid following the Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria in the same year. The Municipality of Lipjan contains 422 km2 of land, and consists of 70 villages. It borders the municipalities of Drenas, Fushë Kosova and Prishtina to the north, Malishevë to the west, Artana and Gjilan to the east and Ferizaj, Theranda and Shtimja to the south. The ancient predecessor of Lipjan, Ulpiana, was an important city in the Illyrian and Dardanian spheres. By the 2nd century CE, it was the economic, political and culture centre of the province of Dardania. It was situated on a road between ancient Naissus and Lissus. It suffered from barbarian raids, especially the incursion of 517CE, and from a great earthquake that damaged much of Dardania. By the time Justinian I began his restoration of the Byzantine Empire, Ulpiana was in a ruinous condition - after repairing the town, Justinian labelled it "Justiniana Secunda". Ulpiana also played an important ecclesiastical role, having had a local bishop present at the Council of Serdica in 347CE and at the Ecumenic Synod of 553CE. Florus and Laurus were said to have settled in Ulpiana. The old Byzantine church in Lipjan serves as a reminder of the ecclesiastical importance the area once held - it continued to hold a bishopric seat in the Bulgarian empire and once again in the Byzantine empire once the region was recaptured. Lipjan is the birthplace of the Albanian noble, Lekë Dukagjini, who was born here in 1410. He was a close friend of the Albanian military commander and ruler, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, and a participant in the Albanian League of Lezhë. He was a member of the Dukagjini family, whose principality extended from Northern Albania to modern-day Kosovo. Lipjan was the sight of war crimes during the Kosovo War. Ethnic Albanians were forced out of the area on April 20 by Serb forces, and Albanian residences were looted and burned by said forces. Serbian paramilitary forces were alleged to have shot more than 50 civilians in 3 surrounding villages. According to the last official census done in 2011, the municipality of Lipjan has 57,605 inhabitants. Based on the population estimates from the Kosovo Agency of Statistics in 2016, the municipality has 57,415 inhabitants. The ethnic composition of the municipality:
Name
Lipjan () or Lipljan () is a town and municipality located in the Pristina District of Kosovo.