Zlatibor

In the Middle Ages the area was Rujno, a district of Raška, a centre of the medieval Serbian state, and the monasteries of Uvac and Dubrava stood on the plateau; Uvac was destroyed by the Ottomans in the late 17th century. The name Zlatibor appears in the 18th century; it probably means golden pine, after a local variety of Scots pine of which only grafted trees in the towns survive. Cigla, a hill near Jablanica, still carries boundary marks of the Kingdom of Serbia, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

Organised tourism began on 20 August 1893, when King Aleksandar Obrenović decided to found a health resort at the spot now called Kraljeva Voda, the King's Water, where a fountain marks his lunch. The Užice road, built in 1923–27, opened the plateau to visitors. In the autumn of 1941 Zlatibor was caught up in the fall of the short-lived Partisan Republic of Užice: the retreating Partisans buried paper money and silver on the mountain, and much of it was lost or taken by others. In 1944, 47 Allied airmen shot down over the mountain were hidden by local Chetniks and later flown out.

In 1945 the settlement was renamed Partizanske Vode, and in 1947 the lake was finished by a youth work action; the town took the name Zlatibor again in 1991. Part of the mountain became a nature park in 2017, and in January 2021 the gondola to Tornik opened. The town has grown so fast, with crowded and unplanned buildings, that it has been nicknamed Kaluđerica on the Mountain, after a sprawling Belgrade suburb.

The plateau's culture is pastoral and craft-based. In the 19th century its caravan merchants, the kiridžije, carried goods on strings of 15 to 20 horses, and a photograph of one of them became a postcard icon, Zlatibor's fast train; wooden statues of the merchant and his horse stand at the start of the promenade. Wool was the other great trade: under the designer Dobrila Smiljanić, knitting at Sirogojno grew into a brand known abroad, and the village's Old Village open-air museum gathers wooden houses from across the region.

Every year since 2005 the village of Jablanica has held a village multisport event of old tasks — lighting tar kilns, log sawing, horse races, stone throwing, pole climbing, folk songs and dancing, and above all oxen dragging tree trunks down the mountain.

The rebuilt Uvac monastery stands on the plateau again, and village life follows the Orthodox calendar of slavas and church feasts. The resort is busiest at New Year and in July and August.

Zlatibor town had about 2,800 permanent residents in 2011, and the municipality of Čajetina, to which most of the plateau belongs, had about 14,600 in 2022; Užice, at the foot of the mountain, is the largest city of the area. Tourism dominates the economy: hotels, apartments, restaurants, pools and ski lifts, with residents of the villages renting rooms and building guesthouses.

The town's growth has brought problems as well as income. Construction since the 2010s has crowded the centre, and a new wastewater treatment plant opened in 2021. Brown bears have settled on the mountain, and by 2023 they were raiding stables, orchards and beehives, leading to proposals for bear-proof fences and more shepherd dogs.

The year runs on two seasons. Winter brings skiers to Tornik and the town slope, and summer brings walkers, paragliders and families escaping the heat of the lowlands. Outside these peaks the resort is quiet.

Zlatibor is meat and dairy country. The village of Mačkat is famous for its cured meats, above all Zlatibor pršuta, smoked pork ham, while neighbouring Užice gives its name to Užice pršuta, smoked beef, pork or mutton. Serbian cooking more widely grew from keeping pigs for the annual cull and making sausages, bacon and ham, and the plateau's smokehouses continue that tradition.

West of the Great Morava kajmak is the prized dairy product: a creamy food similar to clotted cream, most prized when only a day or two old, eaten for breakfast, as a condiment, or melted over a pljeskavica. Zlatibor also has its own cheese. Komplet lepinja, the complete flatbread, is a popular breakfast filled with kajmak, egg and roasted meat drippings.

The mountain's meadows and woods supply medicinal herbs such as gentian and thyme, and wild blackberries, blueberries and woodland strawberries, and rakija is offered as a welcome in village homes.