Draganca lies about 12 km north of Gjilan and is a hilly and mountainous settlement divided into neighbourhoods. Old house foundations have been found at Arat e Hoxhës. The village is mentioned in a document from 1381, in the Ottoman register of 1498, and on an Austrian map from 1689 as Dragovac.
After the expulsion of Albanians from the Sanjak of Niš in 1877–78, several muhajir families settled here. In the years after 1912 part of the Albanian population was killed or displaced; in 1944 nine members of one family were killed by the 17th Macedonian Partisan Brigade.
By 1999 only a small number of Albanian and Serbian families remained. Five houses belonging to the Kadriu family were burned during the war.
Source
Source and further reading
Principal source: Prof. Dr. Jusuf Osmani, Vendbanimet e Kosovës 6 — Gjilani, Prishtinë, 2004.
Source entry: DRAGANCA
This page presents a selected summary from the published study of the settlement. For complete archival references, family histories, microtoponymy and the full treatment, consult the original volume.