section_path: History
section_name: History
paragraph_text: History
  
  Due to its favourable geographic location, together with excellent natural climate characteristics, Kočani was inhabited as early as the ancient times first by the Paionians, Meds and Thracians.Later on, in the 6th century the Slavs inhabited parts of the region. More precisely, in the 7th century members of the Slavic tribe Smolyani colonized the Kočani valley and built a fortification. The founders of the Slavic education, brothers Kiril and Metodij (Cyril and Methodius), stayed in the valley from the year 845 to 855 and in the Bregalnica area (Morodvis) started to preach Christianity in Slavic language.
  
  Although the settlement existed long before that, Kočani was first mentioned in a charter from 1337 in which Despot Jovan Oliver donated the church of St. Dimitrija to Kočani.
  
  Archaeological finds in the town itself have revealed remains of a settlement here in the Roman and Byzantine periods. Early in the 15th century it fell under Ottoman rule. The travel chronicler Evliya Çelebi, who visited it in 1662, recorded that it had 600 households, a mosque, a mezjid, an inn and 15 handicraft stores. During the 18th and in the early 19th century, the town growth rate stagnated. It was only around 1878 that the population began to rise, at which time it had about 450–500 households. The town has two feudal residences in the shape of towers believed to date from the 16th–17th century.
  
  At least 59 people were killed and 152 were injured after a fire broke out in the Pulse nightclub during a concert on 16 March 2025.