Vršac (Serbian Cyrillic: Вршац, pronounced [ʋr̩̂ʃat͡s]) is a city in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia.

The name Vršac is of Serbian origin, ultimately deriving from Proto-Slavic *vьrxъ, meaning "summit".

[1] In Serbian, the city is known as Вршац or Vršac, in Romanian as Vârșeț or Vîrșeț, in Hungarian as Versec or Versecz, in German as Werschetz, and in Turkish as Virşac or Verşe.

The Slavs settled in this region in the 6th century, and the Slavic tribe known as the Abodrites (Bodriči) was recorded as living in the area.

According to Serbian historians, medieval Vršac was founded and inhabited by Serbs in 1425,[3][4] although it was under administration of the Kingdom of Hungary.

[citation needed] According to other sources, Vršac fortress was built by Đurađ Branković after the fall of Smederevo.

An important man was Janko Lugošan, called Halabura, who got control of the Vršac Castle after defeating Arslan Beg, the aga, in a duel.

The Serb rebels bore flags with the image of Saint Sava, thus the rebellion had a character of a holy war.

Furthermore, the Koca Sinan Pasha also burned the mortal remains of Saint Sava in Belgrade, as a revenge to the Serbs.

The Serb population came back, but the amnesty did not apply to the leader of the rebellion, Bishop Teodor Nestorović, who was flayed as a punishment.

After the abolition of the voivodship, Vršac was included in Temes County of the Kingdom of Hungary, which became one of two autonomous parts of Austria-Hungary in 1867.

From 1918, the town was part of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia).

During the Axis occupation (1941–1944), Vršac was part of autonomous Banat region within the area governed by the Military Administration in Serbia.

The settlements with a Romanian ethnic majority are: Vojvodinci, Jablanka, Kuštilj, Mali Žam, Malo Središte, Markovac, Mesić, Ritiševo, Sočica, and Straža.

The leading pharmaceutical company in Vršac (and nationwide) is the Hemofarm, which helped start the city's Technology Park.

The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity (as of 2022):[20]  State Road 10 (which is part of European route E70) connects Vršac to Belgrade and to the nearby border with Romania.

[21] The symbol of the town is the Vršac Castle (Vršačka kula), which dates back to the mid 15th century and was used until 1522.

According to the Turkish traveller, Evliya Çelebi, the fortress was built by the Serbian despot Đurađ Branković.

The other theory claim that Vršac Castle is a remain of the medieval fortress known as Erdesumulu (Hungarian: Érdsomlyó or Érsomlyó, Serbian: Erd-Šomljo / Ерд-Шомљо or Šomljo / Шомљо).

There are two Serbian Orthodox monasteries in the city: There are three museums in Vršac: At the end of the 17th century, the famous Aga, to whom the attribute "good" was added, because he behaved culturally and did not mistreat the people of Vršac at that time, formed Aga's garden and laid the foundations of what is today the City Park.

However, in the thirties of the 18th century, this area, as a noble estate with the right of inheritance, was awarded by the Palace Chamber to Siegfried von Scherübl, while the credit for the further development of the park as a whole is attributed to his son Johann, when the park became "Šeriblov majur" a kind of arboretum, of rare plants that could resist the microclimate of Vršac.

After Siegfried's death (1795) due to outstanding debts, "Šeriblov majur" was bought at an auction on January 15, 1797 by the Municipality of Vršac, so that in 1817, when Vršac was declared a free royal city, the name "Gradski Majur" came into use, and immediately before the Hungarian Revolution (1848) it was changed to "City Park".