Balanci


Balanci is a village in the municipality of Centar Župa, North Macedonia. The nearby village of Vlasiḱi was once a neighbourhood of Balanci. Other neighbouring villages of Bajramovci, Crno Boci and Odžovci were also once neighbourhoods of Balanci until the mid 1960s when they were elevated to the status of separate villages. It is the only village in the municipality with an Albanian majority.

Name

The toponym Balanci is a patronymic formation derived from the name Balan and the suffix ci.

Demographics

Balanci is recorded in the Ottoman defter of 1467 as a village in the vilayet of Upper Dibra. The settlement was abandoned.
According to Ottoman tahrir defters from the 1520s, 16 villages associated with Kala-i Kodžadžik had no Muslim population. However, the Muslim population increased in subsequent years. This was likely part of the Islamization of Macedonia under Turkish rule.
As of the 2021 census, Balanci had 165 residents with the following ethnic composition:
  • Albanians 149
  • Persons for whom data are taken from administrative sources 12
  • Turks 4
According to the 2002 census, the village had a total of 432 inhabitants. Ethnic groups in the village include:
Some Macedonian Muslims live in the village alongside the Albanian population of Balanci.
According to the 1942 Albanian census, Balanci was inhabited by 352 Muslim Albanians.