Rrajcë

Rrajcë is a village and a former municipality in the Elbasan County, eastern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Prrenjas.[1] The population at the 2011 census was 8,421.[2] The municipality consists of the villages Bardhaj, Katjel, Kotodesh, Rrajcë, Skënderbe, Sutaj and Urakë.[3] The village of Rrajcë is found within the boundaries of Shebenik-Jabllanicë National Park. The nearby forest was declared part of the transnational natural site of UNESCO, Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe.

Rrajcë
Municipal unit
Rrajcë
Coordinates: 41°6′N 20°35′E
Country	Albania
County	Elbasan
Municipality	Prrenjas
Population  (2011)
• Municipal unit	8,421
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)

Demographics

In statistics gathered by Vasil Kanchov in 1900, the village of Rrajcë was inhabited by 840 Bulgarian Muslims.[4] Other villages in the modern day municipality were not included in those demographic statistics.

During the 2000s linguists Klaus Steinke and Xhelal Ylli seeking to corroborate villages cited in past literature as being Slavic speaking carried out fieldwork.[5] Rrajcë was noted as being fully Muslim and Albanian speaking while the linguists found no contemporary speakers of Slavic languages in the village, with local elderly people stating they spoke only Albanian.[5]

References

1. Law nr. 115/2014 Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine
2. 2011 census results Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine
3. Population data on Elbasan County website
4. Vasil Kanchov (1900). http://www.promacedonia.org/vk/vk_2_39.htm Macedonia: Ethnography and Statistics]. Sofia. p. 254.
5. Steinke, Klaus; Ylli, Xhelal (2007). Die slavischen Minderheiten in Albanien (SMA): Prespa - Vërnik - Boboshtica. Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner. pp. 19–20. ISBN 9783866880351.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) "Die Suche nach weiteren Ortschaften mit slavischsprachiger Bevölkerung verlief ergebnislos. Vor allem die für den Raum Korça, Bilisht, Pogradec und Librazhd in der Literatur häufiger genannten Dörfer wie Miras (Božigrad), Bulgarec, Tren, Buzëliqen (Zagradec), Buçimas (Starova), Proptisht und Rajca haben, wie die Überprüfung vor Ort zeigte, keine slavischprachige Bevölkerung mehr.... Überall spricht man aber ausschließlich Albanisch, und bereits die ältere Generation hat angeblich nur diese Sprache benutzt.... Buçimas und die Nachbardörfer wie Zagorçan usw. (Informant: Shaban Hoxha) sowie Rajca (Informant: Spase Tanasov) haben eine rein moslemische Bevölkerung, und man spricht dort nur Albanisch."