Kriva Palanka

Kriva Palanka is a town in the northeastern part of North Macedonia and the seat of Kriva Palanka Municipality, which has 18,059 inhabitants, while the town itself has 13,481. It lies close to the Deve Bair border crossing with Bulgaria, the main route linking Skopje with Sofia, so heavy road traffic runs along the main road that divides the town into two sides. The name comes from the curved bed of the river Kriva, and the older Turkish name was Egri Dere, meaning curved river. The town is counted among the youngest in North Macedonia: it was settled by the Ottoman vizier Bayram Pasha as a fort to strengthen the region, and its formation is noted in Turkish documents from 1633. It first received municipality status in 1919 to 1920 under the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Trade is the strongest part of the local economy because of the nearby border, alongside agriculture, mainly potatoes, and mining at the Toranica and Bentomak mines. The nearby Saint Joachim Osogovski monastery complex is among the best known in the country.