Contemporary Demographic Characteristics of Municipality of Bela Palanka

Abstract

Favourable geo-traffic position of Bela Palanka and its surroundings has always been attractive for settlement of population. This is witnessed by numerous archaeological sites from prehistoric, Roman and Byzantine periods. This paper presents a survey of demographic characteristics in the municipality of Bela Palanka in the period of 1948-2011. The development of industry contributed to the transfer of labor from agricultural to non-agricultural occupations, as well as increasing urbanization, which caused changes in all demographic structures. Socio-economic changes after the Second World War led to a series of demographic changes and processes. The low level of natural growth of population and emigration have caused a continuing decline in number of population in municipality, and in recent years in the town itself.

Keywords

• municipalty of Bela Palanka
• population
• demographic changes
• migrations
• depopulation
• deagrarization