NISH, the capital of the Nish department of Serbia, Yugo slavia. Pop. (1931) 35,384, comprising Serbs, Turks, Albanians, Bulgars, Greeks and a Jewish colony. Nish is not only important commercially, but also strategically since (I) it commands the only two valleys affording easy access from Central Europe to the Aegean, (2) it is the meeting-point of several of the chief Balkan highways, and (3) it is the junction on the Belgrade-Nish railway for both Sofia and Salonika, and fortunately, in this respect, is within easy reach of good coal supplies. The town is the head quarters of one of the five Serbian army provinces, and is the principal f &tress, the perimeter of the entrenched camp being about 3o m. with outlying modern works. The surrounding heights were fortified after 1886. The Turkish town, on the N. bank of the Nishava, contains the citadel and many mosques and picturesque old houses among its winding alleys. It is connected by three bridges with the more modern Serbian town on the south bank, which has wide, fairly well-paved streets, a royal palace surrounded by gardens, a cathedral, government offices, banks and several trading associations. Here too, are the government railway repairing sheds, factories for trucks, engines and carriages, an iron foundry, a pork factory, steam flour mills and an electric power station. The barracks are outside the town. Nish is the see of a bishop and the seat of a district prefecture and a tribunal.
The ancient Roman city Naissus, which probably superseded a Celtic settlement, was mentioned as an important place by Ptolemy of Alexandria, and the old fortress on the right bank of the river is believed to have been erected on its site. Under its walls in A.D. 269 the Emperor Claudius destroyed the army of the Goths, and within it, in A.D. 274, Constantine the Great was
born. The emperor Julian improved its defences but the town was destroyed by the Huns under Attila in the 5th century, and restored by Justinian. In the 9th century the Bulgarians con quered it, but ceded it to the Hungarians in the r 1 th century, from whom the Byzantine emperor Manuel I. took it in 1173. Towards the end of the I2th century the town was in the hands of the Serbian prince Stephen Nemanya, who there received hospitably the German emperor Frederic Barbarossa and his Crusaders. In 1375 the Turks captured Naissus from the Serbians. In 1443 the Hungarians and the Serbians retook it from the Turks, but in 1456 it again came under Turkish do minion, and remained for more than 30o years the most important Turkish military station on the road between Hungary and Constantinople. In the frequent wars between Austria and Turkey during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Austrians captured Naissus twice (in 1689 and 1737) but were unable to retain it long. In the first Serbo-Turkish rising, the Serbians, defending the approach to Nish in 1809, fired their magazine and destroyed both them selves and the enemy. The Turks built a high brick tower in which they embedded goo Serbian skulls. The ruins are still called (Tower of Skulls). In the Russo-Turkish war (1877-8) the Serbians captured Nish and the town was ceded to them by the Treaty of Berlin (1878). Since then the King and the Government have resided there for three months in the year, and here also the National Assembly, before the Constitution of 1901, was regularly held. During the World War (1914-18) the Government withdrew to Nish (1915) when Belgrade was occupied by the enemy, but it was not able to stay there long.