The name Kule means "tower" in Turkish and Serbian. In the 16th-17th century, a tower with Ottoman military garrison existed at this location, hence the name of the town. However it cannot be said for sure whether Ottoman Turks or local Serbs gave this name to the town.
History
In the middle of the 17th century, during Ottoman administration, two settlements with this name were mentioned - Gornja Kula and Donja Kula. These settlements were part of the Ottoman Sanjak of Segedin and were populated by ethnic Serbs. From the end of the 17th century, the region was under administration of the Habsburg monarchy and two settlements were mentioned as Mala Kula and Velika Kula and were unpopulated. In 1714, there was a record about a single settlement named Kula that had 14 houses. In 1733, the population of the settlement numbered 251 houses and its inhabitants were Serbs. Hungarians started to settle there in 1740 and Germans in 1780 to 1785.
After 1867, colonization of Hungarians was intensified, and until the beginning of the 20th century they replaced Serbs as largest ethnic group in Kula. According to the 1910 census, the population of Kula was ethnically mixed: from the total population of 9,119 there was 3,679 speakers of Hungarian, 2,510 speakers of Serbian, 2,425 speakers of German, and 456 speakers of Rusyn.
According to 1953 census, Hungarians were the largest ethnic group in the town, while subsequent censuses recorded Serb ethnic plurality. The German community left Kula at the end of World War II, while a sizable number of Serb Montenegrins from Montenegro settled there instead of Germans. After the breakup of Yugoslavia (1991–1992) and Serbia and Montenegro (2006), the town became part of an independent Republic of Serbia. Today the Serbs are the largest ethnic group in the town.
Inhabited places
The Kula municipality includes the towns of Kula and Crvenka, and also the following villages:
Settlements with a Serb ethnic majority are: Lipar, Nova Crvenka, Sivac, and Crvenka. The settlement with a Rusyn ethnic majority is Ruski Krstur. Ethnically mixed settlements are: Kula (with a relative Serb majority) and Kruščić (with a relative Montenegrin majority).
Ethnic groups in the Kula town
The town of Kula has a total of 17,866 inhabitants, including:[5]
77% of the inhabitants of the Kula municipality declared Serbian as their mother language in a 2002 census.
Economy
Kula is a home to prominent Serbian confectionary products manufacturer Jaffa Crvenka.
The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity (as of 2018):[6]
Activity
Total
Agriculture, forestry and fishing
591
Mining and quarrying
-
Manufacturing
1,964
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply
21
Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities
241
Construction
207
Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles
1,448
Transportation and storage
601
Accommodation and food services
238
Information and communication
59
Financial and insurance activities
92
Real estate activities
3
Professional, scientific and technical activities
202
Administrative and support service activities
221
Public administration and defense; compulsory social security
380
Education
751
Human health and social work activities
294
Arts, entertainment and recreation
85
Other service activities
164
Individual agricultural workers
349
Total
7,913
Politics
There is an initiative among the inhabitants of Crvenka and Ruski Krstur that these two settlements become their own municipalities, completely separate from Kula.
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