Tetovo is a city in the northwestern part of North Macedonia, built on the foothills of Šar Mountain and divided by the Pena River. The municipality of Tetovo covers an area of 1,080 km² at 468 meters above sea level, with a population of 52,915. The city of Tetovo is the seat of Tetovo Municipality.
In antiquity, Tetovo was a Penestae fortress-town in eastern Illyria, called Oaeneon, in Latin Oaeneum, located on the pass between mount Scardos and river Artatos, a tributary to the Vardar river. This was a territory where the Illyrian tribe Penestae lived, and it included the fortress-towns Draudacum, Uskana, Divra and Styberra in northern Pelagonia.
Based on archaeological findings in the area, the city was first inhabited thousands of years ago. Archaeological findings include a Mycenaean sword and a bronze statuette of the 6th c. BCE. Subsequently, Oaeneon was ruled by many ethnic groups; the Illyrian King Genti of the Labeatae, by King Perseus of Macedonia, by the Romans, by the Byzantines, by the Slavs, by the Bulgarians, and by the Albanians led by Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg.
In the 15th c. AD, Oaeneum came under Ottoman rule for about five centuries.