The village is about 12 km (7 mi), by road, from the city of Gjakova, but only 2 km (1 mi) by geographical distance.

The name Ratkovac means Place of a warrior in serbian, derived from the Serbian word rat, which means war.

[citation needed] The village was mentioned in the Ottoman defter of 1591 with 39 households.

[2] According to the Ottoman defter of 1591, the inhabitants anthroponymy were mainly Albanian, Albanian-Slavic along with a few Muslim names.

[2] According to the 2011 Kosovo census, the village had a population of 3,791 inhabitants of which 3,676 were ethnic Albanians.