Čukarica


Čukarica is a municipality of the city of Belgrade.

Name

Like several other neighborhoods of Belgrade, Čukarica was named after kafana. At the present location of the Sugar Refinery, there was a kafana in the second half of the 19th century. It was very popular as it was located at the point where two roads, one from Obrenovac and other from Šumadija, meet at the entrance to Belgrade. It was owned by Stojko Čukar and after him the kafana was named “Čukareva kafana” which later gave name to the settlement.

History

The village of Čukarica was transferred from the Vračar Srez under the administration of the Belgrade municipality on 8 July 1907. Municipality of Čukarica was established for the first time on 30 December 1911. After a popular referendum, inhabitants of Čukarica voted to split from the municipality of Žarkovo and as a result were given the municipal status by the king Peter I of Serbia. Popular folklore rivalry still exists among the inhabitants of Čukarica and Žarkovo, even though today they are both part of Belgrade.
Modern settlement began to develop as the first social housing for the workers of the sugar refinery, on the hill above the hyppodrome. Čukarica became known as the “workers settlement”. The first president of the municipality was an industrialist with the surname Novak, who emigrated from the Czech Republic. He changed his surname to the Serbian version Novaković and his direct descendants are the actress Olivera Marković and her son, director Goran Marković.
After the liberation in World War I in 1918, Čukarica administratively became part of Belgrade. After World War II when Belgrade municipalities were abolished and the city divided into raions in 1945, Čukarica became one of 5 administrative neighborhoods within Belgrade’s Raion VII. Municipalities were re-established in 1957. In 1960. the neighboring municipalities of Umka and Rakovica were incorporated into Čukarica, but Rakovica became a separate municipality again in 1974.

Location

Čukarica is completely surrounded by other municipalities of Belgrade: it is bordered by the Sava river to the west, municipalities of Savski Venac to the north and northeast, Rakovica to the east, Voždovac to the southeast, Barajevo to the south and Obrenovac to the southwest.
Municipality is located southwest from the downtown Belgrade. It comprises the vast marshy woods of Makiš, on the eastern bank of the Sava river and the largest river island in Belgrade, Ada Ciganlija. At the suburb of Sremčica, Beogradski merokras, the most northern terrain made of limestone is located.
Several of the most important roads in western Serbia start here: Lazarevac Road, Ibar Highway, Sava Highway, New Obrenovac Road, Old Obrenovac Road, etc. Also, the largest and most important freight train station and marshalling yard in the area and the main installations of the Belgrade waterworks, including the water factory, are located in the municipality.
Čukarica was the first part of Belgrade that developed industry, in the late 19th and early 20th century and still is one of the most industrialized parts of Belgrade, with commercial sections of the municipalities booming in the last 20 years.
Officially the longest street in Belgrade, Obrenovački put is located in the municipality. According to Belgrade's Directory of Roads, it is 11 kilometers long. However, as the road passes through the forests and mainly uninhabited areas and stretches outside the urban Belgrade City proper, most Belgraders consider the 7.5-kilometer-long Bulevar kralja Aleksandra to be the longest street. While Obrenovač road runs only through one municipality, Bulevar kralja Aleksandra connects four of them: Stari Grad, Vračar, Palilula and Zvezdara.

Neighborhoods

The municipality of Čukarica covers an area of and it is divided in the urban and suburban part. The urban part of the municipality is completely within the Belgrade City proper, comprising many neighborhoods and sub-neighborhoods, some of which used to be separate towns until the 1970s before Belgrade expanded that much to make urban connection to them. The neighborhood of Čukarica, which gave the name to the entire municipality, is located on a hill above the eastern bank of the Sava river. It is bordered by Careva Ćuprija and Senjak to the north, Banovo Brdo.
This is a list of the neighborhoods that comprise the municipality:
The suburban part comprises seven suburban settlements, four of them classified as urban and three as rural settlements:

Demographics

The municipality has a population of 181,231 inhabitants, according to the 2011 census results. That makes Čukarica the second most populous municipality of Belgrade, but it is also the fastest growing one in terms of absolute growth of population. Despite having also a rural parts, the municipality is very densely populated –.

Ethnic groups

The ethnic composition of the municipality:
Ethnic groupPopulation
Serbs166,258
Romani3,163
Montenegrins1,137
Macedonians794
Croats713
Yugoslavs648
Gorani352
Muslims242
Hungarians164
Bulgarians155
Bosniaks137
Russians120
Albanians108
Slovenians156
Others7,084
Total181,231

Economy

The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity :
ActivityTotal
Agriculture, forestry and fishing49
Mining and quarrying29
Manufacturing5,451
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply314
Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities1,379
Construction2,483
Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles9,204
Transportation and storage3,126
Accommodation and food services1,576
Information and communication2,081
Financial and insurance activities1,083
Real estate activities146
Professional, scientific and technical activities2,719
Administrative and support service activities2,269
Public administration and defense; compulsory social security1,345
Education2,807
Human health and social work activities2,442
Arts, entertainment and recreation895
Other service activities1,053
Individual agricultural workers25
Total40,475

Politics

Historical Presidents of the Municipal Assembly since 1989:
Čukarica is twinned with: