Stari Grad, Belgrade

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Стари Град
Stari Grad
Coat of arms of Stari Grad
Location in Belgrade, Serbia
Location of Stari Grad in Belgrade
Location of Belgrade in Serbia
General Information
Status Urban
Municipality area 7 km²
Population
(2002 census)
55,543
Settlements 1
Area code +381 11
Postal code 11000
Car plates BG
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
CEST (UTC+2)
Website http://www.starigrad.org.yu/
Politics
Municipality president Mirjana Božidarević (DS)
Belgrade Old City (Stari Grad)
Belgrade Old City (Stari Grad)

Stari Grad (Serbian Cyrillic: Стари Град) is an urban neighborhood and one of 17 municipalities which constitute the City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is one of 10 urban municipalities which constitute the Belgrade City proper and encompasses some of the oldest sections of urban Belgrade, thus the name (‘’stari grad’’, Serbian for “old town”).

Contents

[edit] Neighborhood

The neighborhood of Stari Grad is not generally considered by the Belgraders as one single definitive neighborhood. Area which Stari Grad covers is either simply styled "downtown" or by the names of the more etablished neighborhood which it overlaps: northern ("Upper") and eastern parts of Dorćol (which it borders on the north) or Studentski Trg. Roughly, it spawns northern and western from the Square of the Republic, bordering also the neighborhoods of Kalemegdan (west), Kosančićev Venac (south-west), Jevremovac and Palilula (south-west) and Viline Vode (north-west), with a population of 9,646 in 2002.

[edit] Municipality

[edit] Geography

Stari Grad, occupies the ending ridge of Šumadija geological bar. The cliff-like ridge, where the fortress of Kalemegdan is located, overlooks the Great War Island and the confluence of the Sava river into the Danube, and makes one of the most beautiful natural lookouts in Belgrade. With Novi Beograd, it is one of 2 municipalities of Belgrade (out of 17) which occupy the banks of both major rivers in Belgrade, the Sava and the Danube (Zemun was the third, but when the municipality of Surčin split, Zemun was left with the Danube, and Surčin with the Sava bank).

The municipality of Stari Grad covers an area of just 7 km² (second smallest in Belgrade, after Vračar) and borders the municipalities of Paliula on the east, Vračar on the south-east and Savski Venac on the south. The Sava makes a border to the municipality of Novi Beograd (west) and the Danube to the municipalities of Zemun (north-west) and the Banat's section of Palilula.

The riverside of the Danube has two distinct artificial bays, the small marina (Marina Dorćol) and the port "Beograd".

[edit] Population

Like the other two "old" municipalities of the central Belgrade (Savski Venac and Vračar), Stari Grad for decades is a highly depopulating municipality, but being a central municipality and small in area, it remains one of the most densely populated municipalities in Serbia (55,543 inhabitants according to the 2002 census or 7,935 inhabitants per km², compared to 96,517/13,788 back in 1971). Population of Stari Grad:

  • 1961 - 96,517
  • 1971 - 83,742
  • 1981 - 73,767
  • 1991 - 68,552
  • 2002 - 55,543 (57,5% of the 1961 population)

Ethnic composition:

Even though residential areas are much densely compact compared to Vračar, the latter is densely populated because almost one third of Stari Grad, even though it is "heart" of Belgrade is not inhabited (mostly the large park of Kalemegdan and the highly industrialized riverside of the Danube, with dozens of factories and spacious hangars and depots).

Assembly of the City of Belgrade
Assembly of the City of Belgrade

However, a number of people working on the territory of the municiplity doubles its own population and makes possible for the municipality of Stari Grad to achieve GDP per capita 6 to 8 times higher than the average of Serbia.

[edit] History

Despite some of the oldest sections of Belgrade belong to Stari Grad, the municipality itself is among the latest urban ones formed administratively. It was formed by the merger of the municipality of Skadarlija and part of the municipality of Terazije on January 1, 1957. Recent presidents of the municipality:

  • 1992 – 2000; Jovan Kažić (b. 1937)
  • 2000 – present; Mirjana Božidarević (b. 1952)

[edit] Neighborhoods

[edit] Features

[edit] Administration

[edit] Economy and tourism

[edit] Culture

[edit] External links

Municipalities and cities of Serbia