From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: Република Србија or Republika Srbija), is a landlocked country in Central and Southeastern Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. It is bordered by Hungary on the north; Romania and Bulgaria on the east; Albania and the Republic of Macedonia on the south; and Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on the west. The capital is Belgrade.
The modern state of Serbia was created in 1817 after the Second Serbian Uprising. Later, it expanded its territory towards the south and included Kosovo and Metohija, Raška and Macedonia regions (in 1912). Finally, Vojvodina (former autonomous Habsburg province named Voivodship of Serbia and Tamiš Banat), proclaimed its secession from Austria-Hungary, and joined Serbia in 1918. The current borders of the country were established following the end of World War II.
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Serbia is located in Europe, on the Balkan peninsula and in the Pannonian Plain. It is placed at the crossroads between Central, Southern and Eastern Europe. The Danube river (2850 km) flows through the northern third of the country; it is 588 km long and forms the border with Croatia and part of Romania. The Sava river forms the southern border of the Vojvodina province, flows into the Danube in central Belgrade, and bypasses the hills of the Fruška Gora in the west. Sixty kilometers to the northeast of Belgrade, the Tisa river flows into the Danube and ends its 1350 km long journey from Ukraine, and the partially navigable Tamis (60 km/350 km) flows into the Danube near Pancevo. The Begej river (254 km) flows into Tisa near Titel. All five rivers are navigable, connecting the country with Northern and Western Europe (through the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal–North Sea route), to Eastern Europe (via the Tisa–, Tamis–, Begej– and Danube–Black sea routes) and to Southern Europe (via the Sava river).
The eastern border of the country is determined by the Carpathian Mountain range, which runs through the whole of Central Europe. The Carpathians meet the Balkan Mountains, following the course of Velika Morava, a 500 km long (partially navigable) river. Midzor peak is the highest point in Eastern Serbia at 2156 m. In the southeast, the Balkan Mountains meet the Rhodope Mountains, connecting the country with Greece. The Sar Mountains of Kosovo form the border with Albania, with one of the highest peaks in the region, Djeravica (2656 m). Dinaric Alps of Serbia follow the flow of the Drina river (at 350 km navigable for smaller vessels only) overlooking the Dinaric peaks on the other side of the shore in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Serbia is populated mostly by Serbs. Significant minorities include Albanians (who are a majority in the province of Kosovo), Hungarians, Bosniaks, Roma, Croats, Slovaks, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Romanians, etc. The two provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, are ethnically and religiously diverse, as they were ruled by the Habsburg Empire and Ottoman Empire respectively for longer time than the Central Serbia.
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Serbia has an economy based mostly on various services, industry and agriculture. In the late 1980s, at the beginning of the process of economic transition, its position was favorable, but it was gravely impacted by UN economic sanctions 1992–95, the damage to infrastructure and industry during the NATO air strikes in 1999, as well as having problems from losing the markets of ex-Yugoslavia and Comecon. Main economic problems include high unemployment and an insufficient amount of economic reforms.
After the ousting of former Federal Yugoslav President Milošević in October 2000, the country experienced faster economic growth (the amount of economic growth in 2006 was 6.3 percent), and has been preparing for membership in the European Union, its most important trading partner. Serbia suffers from high export/import trade deficit and considerable national debt. The country expects some major economic impulses and high growth rates in the next years. Serbia has been occasionally called a “Balkan tiger” due to its recent high economic growth rates, a reference to the East Asian Tigers. Serbia grows about one-third of the world’s raspberries and is the leading frozen fruit exporter.
Serbia has been very successful in economic reforms since the 2000 revolution, especially in the past three years in which growth has averaged 6% - 7%, and foreign direct investment is at record levels. The nation is expected to reach its pre-1990 level of GDP within a short time frame. Estimated GDP of Serbia for 2006 is $50.688 billion which is $6 771 per capita Purchasing Power Parity(PPP), $4 220 (nominal). GDP growth rate in 2006 is 5.8%. Growth in 2005 was 6.3% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in 2006 was $5.85 billion or €4.5 billion.
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Serbia is one of Europe’s most culturally diverse countries. The borders between large empires ran through the territory of today’s Serbia for long periods in history: between the Eastern and Western halves of the Roman Empire; between Royal Hungary, Bulgarian Empire and Byzantium; and between the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire (later Austria-Hungary). As a result, while the north is culturally “Central European”, the south is rather more “Oriental”. Of course, both regions have influenced each other, and so the distinction between north and south is artificial to some extent.
The Byzantine Empire’s influence on Serbia was perhaps the greatest. Serbs are Orthodox Christians with their own national church — the Serbian Orthodox Church. They use both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, as a result of both Eastern and Western influences. The monasteries of Serbia, built largely in the Middle Ages, are one of the most valuable and visible traces of medieval Serbia’s association with the Byzantium and the Orthodox World, but also with the Romanic (Western) Europe that Serbia had close ties with back in Middle Ages. Most of Serbia’s queens still remembered today in Serbian history were mostly of foreign origin: Helen d’Anjou (a cousin of Charles I of Sicily), Anna Dondolo (daughter of the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo), Catherine of Hungary, Symonide of Byzantium.
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Tourism in Serbia is mostly based in mountains and villages. The most famous mountain resorts are Zlatibor, Kopaonik, and the Tara. There also are a lot of spas in Serbia, one the biggest of which is the Vrnjačka Banja. There is also significant tourism in Belgrade and Novi Sad (the capital of the Vojvodina province), as well to the Exit Festival and the Guča trumpet festival. In 2006, there have been over 2 million tourists arrivals in Serbia.
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