Gostivar (Macedonian: Гостивар [ˈɡɔstivar] ⓘ; Albanian definite form: Gostivari) is a city in North Macedonia, located in the upper Polog valley region.

Vardar River extends through Gostivar, cutting it in half, passes through the capital Skopje, goes through the country, enters Greece and finally reaches the Aegean Sea.

In Gostivar, the population that declared itself Turkish "was of Albanian blood", but it "had been Turkified after the Ottoman invasion, including Skanderbeg", referring to Islamization.

He records how during the Third Macedonian War the King of Macedon Perseus at the head of 10000 men, after taking Uskana (Kicevo), attacked Drau-Dak, today Gostivar.

[citation needed] Gostivar remained under Ottoman rule for more than 500 years until 1912, when it was occupied by Serbian troops during the First Balkan War.

[citation needed] Jordan Ivanov, professor at the University of Sofia, wrote in 1915 that Albanians, since they did not have their own alphabet, due to a lack of consolidated national consciousness and influenced by foreign propaganda, declared themselves as Turks, Greeks and Bulgarians, depending on which religion they belonged to.

[citation needed] From the 1950s onwards Orthodox Christian Albanian speakers from Upper Reka migrated cities like Gostivar, where they form the main population of Durtlok neighbourhood.

[7][8][9] A policy of Turkification of the Albanian population was employed by the Yugoslav authorities in cooperation with the Turkish government, stretching the period of 1948-1959.

[12] Leaving Gostivar on the way to Ohrid, the village Vrutok has the gorge of the biggest river in North Macedonia, Vardar, which is 388 km (241 mi) long and flows into the Aegean Sea, at Thessaloniki.

The peaks on the northern part of the Bistra mountain: Rusino Brdo, Sultanica and Sandaktas, host winter sport activities.