Pančevo

Pančevo stands near the mouth of the Tamiš, across the Danube from Belgrade. Its riverside position made it a meeting place of the Banat plain and the routes of the Danube. The settlement passed into Ottoman hands in the sixteenth century and suffered repeatedly during wars along the frontier.

Imperial troops under Claude Florimond de Mercy occupied Pančevo in 1716. Serbian settlers from the Timișoara district established an upper town in the 1720s, while German colonists formed a lower town. The settlement later became part of the Banat Military Frontier and the seat of a frontier regiment. In 1794 the two communities were joined under a single common municipal administration, giving Pančevo a new civic organization as well as its military role.