Population
The Gorani population numbered some 16,000 people in the Gora administrative division, according to the 1991 census. Of these, 50% declared themselves Muslims by nationality, 30% Serbs and 20% Albanians. Gorani leaders today estimate that fewer than 10,000 are left in Gora, after large migrations to Albania's capital, Tirana. Most Gorani state that the unstable situation and the economic issue drives them to leave Kosovo. There is also some mention of threats and discrimination by the ethnic Albanians. The UN administration in Kosovo, UNMIK, has redrawn internal boundaries in the province in such a way that a Gorani-majority municipality no longer exists. The Gora was combined with the neighboring Albanian-populated region of Opolje (some 20,000 people) into a new subdivision named Dragaš, which again has an Albanian majority.
The following villages in the Šar Mountains are traditionally Gorani: In Kosovo: Baćka, Brod, Dikance, Donja Rapča, Donji Krstac, Dragash, Globočica, Gornja Rapča, Gornji Krstac, Orčuša, Kukaljane, Leštane, Ljubovište, Mlike, Radeša, Restelica, Vranište, Zli Potok; In Albania: Borje, Cernalevë, Kosharisht, Novosoj, Orqiklje, Orgjost, Oreshkë, Pakisht, Shishtavec, Zapod. In R. Macedonia: Jelovjane, Urvič.
Read more about this topic: Gorani People
Famous quotes containing the word population:
“The population question is the real riddle of the sphinx, to which no political Oedipus has as yet found the answer. In view of the ravages of the terrible monster over-multiplication, all other riddle sink into insignificance.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We in the West do not refrain from childbirth because we are concerned about the population explosion or because we feel we cannot afford children, but because we do not like children.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)