Kičevo

Kičevo lies in a basin of western Macedonia beneath the fortified hill of Kitino Kale. The site has yielded remains from prehistoric, ancient and medieval settlement. The town appears as Kičavis in a charter of the Byzantine emperor Basil II in 1018, when it belonged to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Ohrid. Its fortress overlooked the roads crossing the basin and gave the town military and administrative importance.

Kičevo passed under Serbian rule before the Ottoman conquest at the end of the fourteenth century. Under the Ottomans, the settlement spread over the plain below Kitino Kale while the fortress increasingly served a military purpose. The town developed as a centre of administration, trade and crafts for the surrounding district. Its older quarter below the hill, Podvaroš, preserves a name meaning the settlement beneath the town.