#Cacak #Sumadija #Serbia #VojvodaStepa #StepaStepanovic
Čačak is a city and the administrative center of the Moravica District in central Serbia. It is located in the West Morava Valley within the geographical region of Šumadija. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has 73,331 inhabitants, while the administrative area comprises a total of 115,337 inhabitants.
Long known as a spa town, the city lies about 144 km south of the Serbian capital, Belgrade. It is also located near the Ovčar-Kablar Gorge ("Serbian Mount Athos"), with over 30 monasteries built in the gorge since the 14th century.
The original name of the town was Gradac (meaning "little town"), which developed around the Moravski Gradac monastery, built in the late 12th century. First mention of the name Čačak was in a document issued by the Republic of Ragusa. Dated on 3 January 1409, it refers to the events from 18 December 1408, and this date is today the official Čačak Town Day.
The origin of the name is obscured today. However, several dictionaries from the 19th and even from the 20th century, including works of major linguists Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Đuro Daničić, mention words čačak and the corresponding adjective čačkovit, meaning (lumps of) frozen or dried mud, or lumps of stone protruding from the ground. The widening along the West Morava where Čačak is located, was indeed regularly flooded until the 20th century. Daničić suggested that the origin of the word is the root skak (skakati means jumping in Serbian). The word and its variants completely disappeared from Serbian language today, but some other toponymy of the same origin were preserved, like in the name of the Čakor mountain.
In time, erroneous but widespread theory developed, claiming that the name indeed means "mud", but that it is of Turkish origin. At the time of the name's first mention this region wasn't occupied by the Ottoman Empire yet, mud is called differently in Turkish language, nor there is a Turkish word corresponding vocally to čačak.