Serbia

I

Introduction

Serbia (Serbian Srbija), republic in southeastern Europe, located on the Balkan Peninsula. Serbia is a landlocked country. Its northern half comprises a broad, low-lying agricultural plain receiving the waters of the mighty Danube. The country’s southern half is mostly hilly and mountainous. Ethnic Serbs make up about two-thirds of Serbia’s population, although ethnic Albanians constitute a majority in the southern province of Kosovo. Serbia’s capital and largest city is Belgrade.

From 1946 to 1991 Serbia was part of a larger federal state of Yugoslavia, which consisted of Serbia and five other republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. That Yugoslav state broke apart in 1991, when several of the republics declared their independence. In 1992 Serbia and Montenegro proclaimed themselves the successor state to the former Yugoslavia and took the name Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The FRY adopted a new constitutional charter in 2003 that gave the constituent republics more autonomy and changed the country’s name from the FRY to Serbia and Montenegro. This union dissolved in June 2006 when Serbia and Montenegro became separate, independent nations.

Since 1999 the province of Kosovo in southern Serbia has been administered by the United Nations (UN). The UN administration was established after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conducted a campaign of air strikes against the FRY amid interethnic violence between Serbs and Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority.

II

Land of Serbia

Serbia is bounded on the north by Hungary; on the east by Romania and Bulgaria; on the south by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM); on the southwest by Albania; and on the west by Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina (often referred to simply as Bosnia), and Croatia. Serbia covers a total land area of 88,361 sq km (34,116 sq mi).

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Most of Serbia can be divided into three regions: Vojvodina, a large province in the north containing fertile plains drained by the Danube and other rivers; Šumadija, a hilly and heavily populated area in central Serbia; and Kosovo, a mountainous province in the south. A fourth region, Sandžak, straddles the southwestern border with Montenegro. Vojvodina encompasses part of the vast Pannonian Plain, although the southern spur of the Carpathian Mountains extends into the southeastern part of the province. The Balkan Mountains flank Serbia’s eastern border, meeting the Carpathians at the Danube. The Dinaric Alps dominate Kosovo. Mount Daravica, on the border between Kosovo and Albania, rises to 2,656 m (8,714 ft).

A

Rivers

The Danube, the second-longest river in Europe, flows eastward across the northern part of Serbia. About 588 km (about 365 mi) of the river’s total length is within Serbia. The Danube forms part of the border with Croatia, flows across the Pannonian Plain and through Belgrade, and then traces part of the border with Romania. At this point the river narrows through the picturesque Iron Gate gorge, where it separates the Balkan Mountains in the south from the Carpathian Mountains in the north. The Iron Gate Dam, a joint project between Romania and the former Yugoslavia that opened in 1972, spans the Danube in the gorge and generates hydroelectricity with two power plants. Most other major rivers in Serbia are tributaries of the Danube. These include the Sava, which joins the Danube at Belgrade, and the Tisza and Morava rivers. The Drina forms much of Serbia’s border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

B

Plants and Animals

The country’s plant and animal life is diverse. The Pannonian Plain was once mostly grassland, but now crops are cultivated over most of it. Mountains are covered in forests of deciduous trees, with mostly oak at lower elevations and beech at higher elevations but also a scattering of elm, ash, chestnut, and willow. Wild animals include boars, deer, bears, wolves, foxes, and chamois. The plains are home to a variety of birds, including quail, partridges, and pheasants, while marshy areas provide wading habitat for storks and herons. Serbia’s rivers contain many species of fish, including trout, perch, carp, sheatfish (a type of catfish), and several varieties of sturgeon.

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