As of the census, the urban area has 71, inhabitants, while the city administrative area has , inhabitants. By the middle of the 15th century, in the time of the final Ottoman Empire conquest of Old Serbia , another market-place was developing some 11 km to the east.
The latter developed into the modern city of Novi Pazar. Aside from that it is still known as Yeni Pazar in modern-day Turkey. The total area of the city administrative area is km 2. It contains settlements , mostly small and spread over hills and mountains surrounding the city. The largest village is Mur , with over residents. It is generally cooler than Serbia's other major cities, though still significantly warmer than the neighboring town of Sjenica.
One of the oldest monuments of the area is the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul first built in the Roman era and reconstructed in the 9th century. Since the lateth century, the region of modern Novi Pazar served as the principal province of the Serbian realm. It was an administrative division , usually under the direct rule of the monarch and sometimes as an appanage.
It was the crownland , seat or appanage of various Serbian states throughout the Middle Ages, including the Serbian Kingdom β and the Serbian Empire β One of the markets was called "despotov trg" Despot's square. The town was the capital of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar during Ottoman rule. From to , it was controlled by Austria-Hungary , and from to , it was again part of the Ottoman empire under the Kosovo vilayet.
The area has traditionally had a large number of Albanians and Muslim Slavs with a different culture from the Orthodox Serbs. In the Battle for Novi Pazar , fought at the end of during the Second World War , the Chetniks , initially supported by the Partisans , unsuccessfully tried to capture the city.
