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The city of Peja, western Kosovo

Peja (or Pejë when in a sentence with a preposition as in "to", "in" or "from Peja") is the second largest city of Kosovo, with a population of around 114,000. The Serbian name is Пећ (Peć). Peja city is located in a strategic position on the Pećka Bistrica river, a tributary of the White Drin to the east of the Prokletije mountains. The city was known as Pescium during the Roman era. Under Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan, it became a major religious center of medieval Serbia: in 1346 it became the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Patriarchate of Peć (Pećka Patriaršija) was abolished by the Ottomans in 1766, but today, Peć holds the Patriarchate of Serbia. The town and its surrounding area is still sacred ground for adherents of the Serbian Orthodox Church; Pećka Patriaršija, the patriarchal monastery, stands above the town and consists of four fresco-decorated churches, a library and a treasury. The 14th century Visoki Dečani monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies about 19 km south, in nearby Deçani (Dečani).

Peć was captured by the Ottomans in the late 14th century; they named it İpek and made major changes. The town was settled by a large number of Turks, many of whose descendants still live in the area, and took on a distinctly oriental character with narrow streets and old-style Turkish houses. It also gained an Islamic character with the construction of a number of mosques, many of which still survive. One of these is the Bajrakli ("Flag") Mosque, built by the Ottomans in the 15th century and located in the centre of the city.

The five centuries of Ottoman rule came to an end in the First Balkan War of 1912-1913, when Montenegro took control of the town. In the late 1915, during World War I, Austria-Hungary took the city. Peć was retaken in October 1918. After World War I, the city became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia. During World War II the town was occupied by Italian-controlled Albania but in 1944, it once more became part of Yugoslavia, eventially the second largest town in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija as part of the People's Republic of Serbia.

	View to Peja	Old town of Peja	Street towards mosque	Market and mosque
	Bajrakli mosque	In the streets of Peja	Courtyard in Peja	Konak Beg House
	Muslim cemetery	Pećka Patriaršija	Orthodox Patriarch Church	Frescoes in Pećka Patriaršija

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