[9] The 10th-century De Administrando Imperio mentions Rasa (Stari Ras) as a border area between Bulgaria and Serbia at the end of the 9th century.

[13] Basil II recaptured it in 1018, and by 1032, the overall commander of the region was strategoi and doukes Constantine Diogenes,[16][17] as part of a defensive line of Byzantine watchtowers alongside Lipjan, Zvečan, Galič, Jeleč south of Ras and Brvenik north of Ras, watching to the west over a "no-man's-land" named Zygos mountains beyond which was Serbia.

[18][19] Recent archaeological research supports the notion that the Byzantines held control of Ras during Alexios I Komnenos's reign (1048–1118), but possibly not continuously.

He even got as far as Lipjan, which he deliberately burnt down", but when Alexios came close, Vukan escaped to Zvečan and started peace negotiations, and reportedly his attack on the watchtowers was a countermeasure against their commanders who ravaged Serbian eastern frontiers.

[26] In 1149, Manuel I Comnenus recovered the fortress of Ras and Galič, and the following year, continued to successfully fight off the Serbians and Hungarians, with the Serbs swearing loyalty to the Byzantines.

[30][31] Somewhere in the next decades, Serbians conquered and started to fully control Ras, with Stefan Nemanja building the monastery of Đurđevi stupovi in celebration of the feat, with an inscription showing that the end of the construction was in 1170-1171.

The full independence of Serbia including Raška's region was recognized by the Byzantines in 1190 after an indecisive war between Isaac II Angelos and Stefan Nemanja.

[33] The town which had developed near the fortress of Ras and the territory which comprised its bishopric were the first significant administrative unit which Serb rulers acquired from the Byzantine Empire.

[35][36] In 1878, some southwestern parts of the historical Raška region, around modern Andrijevica, were liberated from the Ottoman rule and incorporated into the Principality of Montenegro.

In order to mark the occasion, prince Nikola of Montenegro (1860–1918) decided to name the newly formed Eastern Orthodox diocese as the Eparchy of Zahumlje and Raška (Serbian: Епархија захумско-рашка, romanized: Eparhija zahumsko-raška).