The size of Kosovo, from the plains to Gjeravica

Kosovo is small, but not as small as people tend to assume. The Kosovo Agency of Statistics (ASK) puts it at 10,905 km² using 2024 data, a fraction under the 10,908 it gave in 2011. Here I put that in context against places you probably know, and against the space taken up by its mountains, rivers and lakes, which is what really shapes a trip.

What to compare it with

Kosovo is a little larger than the island of Cyprus, which the Spanish foreign ministry and Eurostat put at 9,253 km², and roughly four times the size of Luxembourg, which its statistics office, STATEC, gives as 2,586 km². With 1,585,566 people counted in 2024, that works out at 147 per km². Because I cover Europe from the smallest destination upwards, Kosovo is also the biggest on this site so far. The internal lines, the 38 municipalities, are on the Kosovo map.

A lot of mountain for the space

What makes Kosovo feel bigger on the ground is the relief. The two national parks in Kosovo, Sharr with 39,000 ha under its 1986 law and Bjeshkët e Nemuna with 62,488 ha under the 2012 law, add up to around 1,015 km², close to 9% of the territory. OpenStreetMap shows 45 peaks of 2,400 metres or more inside the boundary, and the loftiest, Gjeravica, reaches 2,656 according to the Spanish foreign ministry. I cover them in Kosovo mountains.

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How the parks divide up

The Environmental Protection Agency breaks Sharr down by municipality. Prizren contributes 19,500 ha, half of it; Shtërpcë 15,210 (39%); Suharekë 2,730 (7%); and Kaçanik 1,560 (4%). Bjeshkët e Nemuna spreads across Gjakovë, Junik, Deçan, Pejë and Istog, according to its law, though it doesn’t give each municipality’s share. Junik is the smallest of the five, with 3,943 people and only three settlements.

Rivers and lakes in numbers

ASK publishes how many kilometres each river runs inside Kosovo. The longest is the White Drin at 112 km, followed by the Sitnica (110), the Ibar (85), the Binačka Morava (67) and the Lumbardhi of Peja (56). The main lakes are small, led by Gazivoda at 9.1 km², with Radoniq, Batllava and Badoc behind. Where each one is, and which are worth a visit, is in Kosovo lakes.

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What the area doesn’t tell you

A territory of 10,905 km² looks like something you could cover in a couple of days, and you can’t. In gov.uk’s words, road standards vary from fair to poor, and they deteriorate in rural areas and after bad weather, with a landslide risk in hilly and mountainous areas, and advises against driving at night. I’d plan stages in hours rather than kilometres. In a straight line, Prizren is 61 km from Pristina and Peja 72, but by road it’s further, as I set out in distances in Kosovo.

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