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
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“The paid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansions of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; the luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)