The market town of the Lim valley: a 12th-century church that commissioned the Miroslav Gospel, and the station on the Belgrade–Bar line where passports get stamped.
Bijelo Polje is the largest city of northern Montenegro, set in a wide, open basin on the Lim river where the valley flattens out enough to farm properly. Its name means white field, and the surrounding plain of orchards, hayfields and low wooded hills gives the city a softer setting than most of the mountainous north. It sits on the Belgrade–Bar railway and the main road corridor to Serbia, which has made it a crossroads for centuries and shaped a mixed Orthodox and Muslim population whose two traditions are visible in the churches, mosques and cooking side by side.
1 accommodation in Bijelo Polje
The country by municipality
Municipality populations, 2023 census
Fourth-largest municipality in Montenegro, and much the largest in the north — Berane, Pljevlja and Rožaje hold between 23,000 and 25,000 each.
Town or countryside
Share of each municipality living in its main town, 2023
Seven in ten people here live outside the town — the lowest share of any large municipality in the country.
Who visits Montenegro
Share of foreign overnight stays, 2025
MONSTAT · 2025
Census population, Bijelo Polje municipality
The sparkline is the municipality: 50,284 people in 2003, 38,662 in 2023 — nearly a quarter gone in twenty years. The town holds 11,635 of them, which leaves Bijelo Polje the fourth-largest municipality in Montenegro and the least urban of the big ones.
Four and a half centuries of the town’s recorded life were spent as Akova, an Ottoman market on the Dubrovnik caravan road. Widths are to scale.
Church presumed c. 1190; Gospel commissioned 1180, transcribed 1186–1190; Ottomans take Bihor in 1455; mosque 1691–1912; railway 28 May 1976.
A day on the Lim
A working town, and the trains that stop in it
Meanwhile, in 1912
Bijelo Polje, the First Balkan War opens on 9 October 1912. The Eastern detachment of the Montenegrin army, under brigadier Janko Vukotić and stationed around Kolašin, Žabljak and Andrijevica, takes Mojkovac, the town on the Lim and Berane inside a month. Ottoman Akova ends after four and a half centuries.
St Peter’s — the church that had served as a mosque since 1691 returns to the Orthodox parish. The rebuilt nave’s reconsecration is set for Petrovdan 1923; the founder’s plaque, moved under the Ottomans, now stands above the west door again.
The Sanjak — the district governed from Novi Pazar since 1865 and from Sjenica after 1902 is divided between Serbia and Montenegro. The frontier settles at Dobrakovo, fourteen kilometres north of town, where it still runs.
The Atlantic: the Titanic had gone down that April. Nineteen-twelve reached the Lim in October.
Today — the Ottoman name survives on the town’s mountaineering and caving club, Akovo, whose members guide the four-hour trips into Đalovića cave.
“Made for the church of St Peter at Miroslav’s order: 362 parchment pages, some three hundred miniatures and initials in gold, one of the oldest surviving manuscripts in the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic.”
The Miroslav Gospel
UNESCO put it on the Memory of the World register in 2005. The book went to Hilandar, then to King Aleksandar in 1896, and is now in the National Museum in Belgrade; Wikipedia’s account places the transcription itself, 1186–1190, in Kotor rather than here.
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Bijelo Polje lies on the river Lim in northern Montenegro, near the Serbian border, about 100 km from Podgorica by road. It is one of the larger northern towns and a stop on the Belgrade to Bar railway, which makes it easy to reach without a car.
White field. The usual explanation is the white daisies that once covered the meadows along the Lim, and the name is first recorded in the 14th century. The valley is still farmland, broad and green, with hills rising on both sides.
A 12th-century church on the edge of town, and the reason Bijelo Polje appears in every history of Serbian literature: Miroslav's Gospel, the oldest surviving Cyrillic manuscript of the region, was written here for Prince Miroslav in the 1180s.
In the National Museum in Belgrade, not in Bijelo Polje. UNESCO added it to the Memory of the World register in 2005. The church where it was made still stands, and the town keeps a facsimile.
Djalovica gorge and its cave system lie to the east, one of the longest in the Balkans and still being explored. The Bjelasica range is south for walking and skiing, and the Lim itself is used for rafting and fishing.
For the church of St Peter above all, and as a practical break on the road or railway north. It is a working, mixed town rather than a tourist destination, and it works best as a half-day alongside Djalovica gorge or Bjelasica.
JulPetrovdan — 12 July, the patron feast of St Peter and Paul — the day set for the rebuilt church’s reconsecration in 1923
SepRatkovićeve večeri poezije — the poetry festival, running since 1973, opens on 3 September, Risto Ratković’s birthday; the 56th edition ran 3–5 September 2026, with 46 books entered for his prize
The local plate
Below the town the Bistrica runs into the Lim at the place everyone calls the Ušće. The municipality holds its Dani riblje čorbe there: fish soup, grilled and smoked river fish, and folk music on the bank.
Where The Ušće, where the Bistrica joins the Lim
The nearest places to Bijelo Polje, at their true positions — Murino is about 23 km away in a straight line.
Schematic. Positions and straight-line distances from the coordinates we hold for each place; mountain roads make the drive longer. Coastline and Lake Skadar © OpenStreetMap contributors.
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List your propertyBijelo Polje in numbers
the Miroslav Gospel, made for St Peter’s here, joins UNESCO’s Memory of the World register
the church of St Peter and Paul, founded by Prince Miroslav of Hum
Nikoljac’s frescoes — twelve cycles and about 150 figures of saints
the Belgrade–Bar line opens; Bijelo Polje is now its border station
Đalovića cave in the Bistrica gorge — surveyed length, and the longest in Montenegro
2023 census, the town itself; 38,662 in the municipality
MONSTAT 2023 census · CANU lexicon on Nikoljac · UNESCO Memory of the World · showcaves.com survey
A few hours
Two medieval churches and a river, all within walking distance of the station — enough for the two hours a Belgrade-bound train leaves you.
One full day
The cave is the reason to give the town a whole day: 10.5 km surveyed, the longest in Montenegro. The Akovo club guides it in small groups, summer and autumn only.
Town centre
Best for the main street, the market and the railway station within a few minutes’ walk
Nikoljac
Best for the monastery quarter, quieter than the main street
The Ušće
Best for where the Bistrica meets the Lim — fishing water, the fish-soup ground, and the road east to the gorge
The Bjelasica road
Best for village rooms south of town; the range begins about twenty kilometres out, Crna glava at 2,139 m
Best time: June · July · September
