Gjilan is the sixth most populous city in Kosovo and it serves as both a municipality and the administrative center of the Gjilan District. The municipality has a population of 90,178 with approximately 54,239 inhabitants residing in the urban area.
It is located in the east of Kosovo, in the region of Anamorava, and is well connected with the capital city of Kosovo, Pristina, as well as other surrounding cities such as Ferizaj, Kamenica, Preševo and Bujanovac.
Gjilan is located in the southeastern part of Kosovo, the region of Anamorava. Its geographic position makes it possible to make good connections with other centers of Kosovo and the region. Around the town of Gjilan lies the Hill of Martyrs (Popovica), Gllama, Dheu i Bardhë, the area of Malisheva (Gjilan), Zabeli of Sahit Agës and Bregu i Thatë. There are three small rivers, Mirusha, Banja and Stanishori, which join and flow to Binačka Morava, west of the Uglara village. Gjilan is 46 km from Pristina, 27 km from Kamenica, 22 km from Vitia, and 25 km from Novo Brdo. The municipalities of the region are bordered in the southeast by Preševo (33 km) and Kumanovo (53 km), and in the east by Bujanovac (40 km). The Gjilan area is defined by the Morava River, which collects all the small rivers, with an average monthly flow rate of 6.7 cubic meters/second. In the southeast it is surrounded by the mountains of Karadak.
As of 2018 there were 4,100 registered private businesses in the municipality employing some 6,900 people. Prior to 1999, Gjilan was an important industrial centre in Kosovo. Still in operation are the radiator factory and tobacco factory, which has been recently privatized. The new city business incubator, supported by the European Agency for Reconstruction, was inaugurated in the summer of 2007.
Flaka e Janarit is a cultural event that starts on January 11 in Gjilan with a symbolic opening of the flame, to keep up with various cultural activities to 31 January of each year. It gathers thousands of artists and art lovers from all the Albanian territories, who for three consecutive weeks transform the city into a cultural metropolis. The nation’s martyrs are honored through values of art by this event, which began before the 10th anniversary of the assassination of writer, activist and patriot Jusuf Gërvalla, along with Kadri Zeka and Bardhosh Gërvalla. It was exactly the tenth anniversary without these three martyrs of freedom and from coincidence of these murders in a same date on 11 January, this event got this name “Flaka e Janarit”.
