Serbia


Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia (Latin: Republika Srbija), is a landlocked country in Central and Southeastern Europe, covering the central part of the Balkan Peninsula and the southern part of the Pannonian Plain. The capital is Belgrade. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west.

Placed under Ottoman occupation in the 15th century following the collapse of the Serbian Empire, the uprisings against Turkish yoke between 1804-1815 reestablished Serbia as a state which obtained formal independence in 1878. Victorious in Balkan wars and World War I, for nearly a century Serbia was part of various South Slavic states, including the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from 1918 to 1941 (re-named the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929), the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1992, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1992 to 2003, and the State Union Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006. After Montenegro voted to leave the State Union, Serbia officially proclaimed its independence on June 5, 2006, as the successor state to the State Union Serbia and Montenegro.