"Vranje, a small, once a border Serbian town,
had been up to the time of Stanković, hardly known
even by its name, and it had been perfectly unknown by its people.
Having discovered Vranje, Stanković truly discovered
a completely new moral continent of ours".
Jovan Dučić, writer

Vranje is the economic, political, and cultural center of Pčinj County , which consists of the municipalities of Bosilegrad, Bujanovac, Vladičin Han, Preševo, Surdulica, Trgovište, and Vranje. The city is situated in the northwestern part of the Vranjska depression, on the left bank of the Južna-Southern Morava River . The River and the City are divided by the arterial highway and the railroad line, on the north, leading to:

It is situated at the foot of Pljačkovica (1231m), Krstilovica (1154m), and Pržar (731m) Mts. It is 70 km away from the border of Bulgaria and 40 km away from Macedonia .

There are no reliable data as to when and where the settlement had been formed on the foundations of which the town of Vranje was built. It is assumed that it happened at the time of Trakolir (the Romans), Byzantine Empire (the Greeks) or Slavs, who inhabited these territories in VI and VII centuries. However, one thing is beyond dispute: this is a particularly important geostrategic territory in which, from times immemorial, caravan routes had intersected so that it had been "the easiest route in both directions, which led the conquerors via Vranjsko Morava River basin ".

The first written data about Vranje, way back from XI century, was left to us by Anna Komnina, a Greek woman of imperial origin. Writing about the rule of her father Alexey Komnin, in her book "Alexiad", she said that Prince Vukan of Raška, in 1093, in his incursion, arrived at Vranje and occupied it. Not for long, he had to pull out before the mighty Byzantine Empire .

For the second time, in 1193, Vranje was temporarily taken away from the Byzantine Empire by Grant Prince Stefan Nemanja of Raška and it was annexed it to the medieval Serbian state. However, Vranje definitely became a part of the Serbian state in 1207, when it was occupied by Stefan the First-crowned. The town and župa (district) at the same time, in the course of the middle ages, was governed by the noblemen King Stefan Dečanski and Emperor Dušan.

Upon disintegration of the medieval Serbian State , the Ottomans occupied Vranje on June 14, 1455, and held it under their control all until January 31, 1878, the Day of St. Antanas, when the town was occupied by the Serbian army under the command of General Jovan Belimarković. Vranje was under the Ottomans for 422 years. The town, in the Princedom of Serbia, won its freedom with a little over 8,000 inhabitants.

In the Balkan Wars and in the two World Wars, Vranje and this region were again the target of conquerors. In the First Balkan War in 1912, the operations against the Turks were personally commanded by the King Petar I Karadjordjević, the Prime Minister Nikola Pašić with a number of ministers, and by the General Staff with the Chief of Staff, Field Marshal Radomir Putnik from this place.

However, these territories, particularly in the recent history, were a frequent target of the Bulgarian invaders, who committed unheard-of atrocities here. In the First World War, the Bulgarians occupied Vranje on October 16/17, 1915 and it was liberated by the Serbian soldiers from the Thessalonica Front on October 4, 1918. The freedom was then paid by 514 lives at the Front and 335 civilians executed by firing squads.

In the Second World War, the Germans marched into this town on April 9, 1941, and, on April 22, they handed it over into the hands of the Bulgarian fascists. In Vranje, in four years, the latter committed serious atrocities – they executed by firing squads around 700, and interned 4,000 patriots. Around 12,000 soldiers participated in the battles, 956 of whom did not live to win freedom on September 7, 1944.