page_title: Skopje
section_title: Urban morphology
hierarchical_section_title: Skopje / Urbanism / Urban morphology
caption_attribution_description: The graphical scheme of the General urban plan for the city of Skopje, North Macedonia. The graphical scheme contains different zones which are designated with different colors.
context_page_description: Skopje is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre.
  The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; remains of Neolithic settlements have been found within the old Kale Fortress that overlooks the modern city centre. Originally a Paeonian city, Scupi became the capital of Dardania in the second century BC. On the eve of the 1st century AD, the settlement was seized by the Romans and became a military camp. When the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves in 395 AD, Scupi came under Byzantine rule from Constantinople. During much of the early medieval period, the town was contested between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire, whose capital it was between 972 and 992.
  From 1282, the town was part of the Serbian Empire, and acted as its capital city from 1346 to 1371. In 1392, Skopje was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, who called it Üsküb, with this name also being in use in English for a time. The town stayed under Ottoman control for over 500 years, serving as the capital of pashasanjak of Üsküp and later the Vilayet of Kosovo.
context_section_description: The urban morphology of Skopje was deeply impacted by the 26 July 1963 earthquake, which destroyed 80% of the city, and by the reconstruction that followed. For instance, neighbourhoods were rebuilt in such a way that the demographic density remains low to limit the impact of potential future earthquakes.
  Reconstruction following the 1963 earthquake was mainly conducted by the Polish architect Adolf Ciborowski, who had already planned the reconstruction of Warsaw after World War II. Ciborowski divided the city in blocks dedicated to specific activities. The banks of the Vardar river became natural areas and parks, areas located between the main boulevards were built with highrise housing and shopping centres, and the suburbs were left to individual housing and industry. Reconstruction had to be quick in order to relocate families and to relaunch the local economy. To stimulate economic development, the number of thoroughfares was increased and future urban extension was anticipated.
  The south bank of the Vardar river generally comprises highrise tower blocks, including the vast Karpoš neighbourhood which was built in the 1970s west of the centre. Towards the East, the new municipality of Aerodrom was planned in the 1980s to house 80,000 inhabitants on the site of the old airport. Between Karpoš and Aerodrom lies the city centre, rebuilt according to plans by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. The centre is surrounded by a row of long buildings suggesting a wall ("Gradski Zid").
  On the north bank, where the most ancient parts of the city lie, the Old Bazaar was restored and its surroundings were rebuilt with low-rise buildings, so as not to spoil views of the Skopje Fortress. Several institutions, including the university and the Macedonian academy, were also relocated on the north bank in order to reduce borders between the ethnic communities. Indeed, the north bank is mostly inhabited by Muslim Albanians, Turks and Roma, whereas Christian ethnic Macedonians predominantly reside on the south bank.
  The earthquake left the city with few historical monuments, apart from the Ottoman Old Bazaar, and the reconstruction, conducted between the 1960s and 1980s, turned Skopje into a modernist but grey city. At the end of the 2000s, the city centre experienced profound changes. A highly controversial urban project, "Skopje 2014", was adopted by the municipal authorities in order to give the city a more monumental and historical aspect, and thus to transform it into a proper national capital. Several neoclassical buildings destroyed in the 1963 earthquake were rebuilt, including the national theatre, and streets and squares were refurbished. Many other elements were also built, including fountains, statues, hotels, government buildings and bridges. The project has been criticized because of its cost and its historicist aesthetics. The large Albanian minority felt it was not represented in the new monuments, and launched side projects, including a new square over the boulevard that separate the city centre from the Old Bazaar.
  Some areas of Skopje suffer from a certain anarchy because many houses and buildings were built without consent from the local authorities.
caption: Skopje urban plan for 2002–2020:    City centre   Collective housing   Individual housing   Industrial areas
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