Kriva Palanka

(Macedonian: Крива Паланка)

Kriva Palanka is a town located in the northeastern part of the Republic of Macedonia. It has nearly 21,000 inhabitants. The town of Kriva Palanka is a seat of the Kriva Palanka municipality.

The town lies near the Deve Bair national border crossing with Bulgaria, as such, there is constant heavy traffic passing through the main road which bisects the two sides of the town (Deve Bair is considered the main border crossing between Macedonia and Bulgaria because it links the capitals Skopje with Sofia).

• Number of inhabitants: 20.820
• Area: 480.81 sq. km
• Geographic position:
• Climate: Continental
• Average temperature:
• Time zone: Central European Time (GMT +1)
• Postal Code: 1330
• Local area code: 031

The city of Kriva Palnka (Turkish: Egri Dere) was established in 1634 by Bayram Pasha, who was a vizier of the sultan Murath I.

Evlija Celebija, the famous Turkish travel-writer, described Kriva Palanka in his Travels from 1661, as a town with 800 families. Karposh rising against the Turks took place in this area in 1689, and Palanka was the centre of the rising, and was liberated for several months. Although crushed in blood the rising left a big influence on the spirit of the locals.

After the liberations from the Turks, in 1912 the region fall under Serbian jurisdiction till 1915, and then three years, till 1918 under Bulgarian jurisdiction. In 1918 Kriva Palanka and the region became a part of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, which formed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia later. Due to very bad economic conditions between the two wars, the population has massively migrated, in USA and South America mainly.

The local people took active presence in the anti-fascist war on the Balkans.

Kriva Palanka as many other small cities experienced its bloom after the WW-2 in the new state of socialistic Yugoslavia. The city gets some margins of a urban and modern place in democratic Macedonia nowadays.

• By car:
• By plane: www.airports.com.mk (Skopje)
• By bus: www.sas.com.mk (Skopje)
• By train: Railway line Kicevo – Skopje, via Gostivar and Tetovo