Prokuplje (Serbian Cyrillic: Прокупље, pronounced [prǒkupʎe]) is a city and the administrative center of the Toplica District in southern Serbia.

[4] Together with Belovode, Pločnik is one of two Vinča culture sites from Serbia considered (as of 2014) the worldwide earliest to produce evidence of copper smelting.

[4] There are two theories about the emergence of metalworking: the smelting technology was either discovered in one region only, at or near the Fertile Crescent in what is now southern Iran and emanated from there around the world, or it happened independently in different places, the Vinča culture area of Serbia and Bulgaria being one of them, and for now the oldest to be researched and dated.

It was located on the Roman Via Militaris, a road that connected the central Balkans with the Adriatic, passing through nearby Naissus (Niš).

[17] During the Great Turkish War (1683–1699), there was a massive local rebellion of Christian Serbs in support of the Austrian troops who were advancing in the area.

[19] Toponyms such as Arbanaška and Đjake shows an historic Albanian presence in modern-day Prokuplje area that dates to the medieval era.

[20][21] The rural parts of Toplica valley and adjoining semi-mountainous interior was inhabited during Ottoman rule by compact Muslim Albanian population, while Serbs in those areas lived near the river mouths and mountain slopes; both peoples inhabited other regions of the South Morava river basin.

[24] In 1877, the entire Toplica region was captured from the Ottomans by Serbian forces, with Prokuplje changing hands on 19 December 1877.

[28] It is estimated that around 11,437 Albanians left their homes in 119 villages in the Prokuplje district with the arrival of the Royal Serbian Army.

The ethnic composition of the city: Prokuplje has a weak economy, with most of the employed people working in public sector.

[35] The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity (as of 2022):[36] Prokuplje is twinned with: