Zrenjanin

Zrenjanin is a city and the administrative center of the Central Banat District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. The city urban area has a population of 67,129 inhabitants, while the city administrative area has 105,722 inhabitants (2022 census data). The old name for Zrenjanin is Veliki Bečkerek or Nagybecskerek as it was known under Austria-Hungary up until 1918. After World War I and the liberation of Veliki Bečkerek the new name of the city was Petrovgrad, in honor of His Majesty King Peter I the Great Liberator, the King of Serbia and the King of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Zrenjanin is the second largest city in the Serbian part of the Banat geographical region, and the 4th largest city in Vojvodina (after Novi Sad, Subotica and Pančevo). The city was designated European City of Sport 2021.

Over the course of its history, the city has undergone several name changes. Under Habsburg administration, it was referred to as Großbetschkerek in German, Bečkerek (Бечкерек) or Veliki Bečkerek (Велики Бечкерек) in Serbian and Nagybecskerek in Hungarian. In 1935, as part of Yugoslavia, it was renamed to Petrovgrad (Петровград) in honor of king Peter I of Serbia.

During the German occupation of Serbia in World War Two from 1941 to 1944, it was called Betschkerek or Gross-Betschkerek in official German documents. In 1946, it was renamed Zrenjanin after Yugoslav Partisan Žarko Zrenjanin (1902–1942) who was a victim of the occupying forces.

In Romanian it is known as Becicherecul Mare or Zrenianin, and in Slovak as Zreňanin.

Prehistory can be divided into the Palaeolithic – Old Stone Age and the Neolithic – New Stone Age. In Zrenjanin's regions no archaeological sites of the Palaeolithic have been found. The only exception was the discovery of a mammoth’s head and other bones found on the banks of Tisa River near Novi Bečej in 1952.

The region had already been inhabited in the early Neolithic period about 5000 years BC. The most important archaeological site from this period is the so-called Krstić tumulus, located near Mužlja, about 10 km (6 mi) away from Zrenjanin where ceramics, with ornaments were found. Beside the brewery ground, coloured fine ceramics, and ornaments from the Starčevo culture were discovered. The middle Neolithic appeared in our area as Vinča and Potisje culture, in the down course of the Tisa River. The influence of two parallel cultures flew through it at the same time. The Iron Age has not been enough explored yet. A few regions with some archaeological materials from the Iron Age have been found: in the residential area Šumica a tip of a spear was found and near the oil factory, and pieces of ceramics from the Bronze Age were also discovered.

The area was settled by many native tribes, but also by many newcomer tribes: the Illyrians, the Celts, the Goths, the Geths, the Sarmatian and Jazghs. At the end of the third century and towards the middle of the fourth century, in the area of Zrenjanin and its surroundings, the Sarmatian tribe Roxolani appeared. From this period, a Sarmatian’s graveyard has been found in a city residential district, near the railroad bridge. Finally in the necropolis, not far from Aradac, “Mečka”, more than 120 graves, which date from the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century, were excavated in 1952.