Gora_(region)
Gora (region)
Geographical and historical region
Gora (Cyrillic: Гора; Albanian: Gorë) is a geographical region in southern Kosovo and northeastern Albania, primarily inhabited by the Gorani people.[1][2] Due to geopolitical circumstances, some of the local Gorani people have over time also self declared themselves as Albanians, Macedonians, Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Turks and Muslims by ethnicity.[3][4]
Gorani inhabited settlements in Albania and Kosovo are synonymous with the geographical outline of Gora as a region.[1] Between 1992 and 1999, the Gora region in Kosovo was designated as a municipality, and its population was 17,574 people according to the 1991 census. Today in Kosovo, the region is part of Dragash municipality that includes the Albanian inhabited Opoja region.[1][5] In Albania, the Gora region is located in Kukës County[1] and parts of it are subdivided in the Shishtavec and Zapod territorial units. Nearby, two Gorani settlements geographically located in the Polog region[6][7] of North Macedonia are ethnographically and linguistically associated with the Gora region.
Gora is bordered to the west and northwest by the region of Lumë, which is mostly within Albania and a small portion in Kosovo.[8] In the northeast it is bordered by the regions of Opoja, to the east by Polog and to the south by Upper Reka.