GENERAL INFORMATION
Flag of Serbia
Coat of arms of serbia
Location of Serbia
SERBIA AT A GLANCE
Location In the central part of the Balkan Peninsula of southeast Europe, with Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, Albania and Macedonia to the south, Bosnia-Herzegovina to the west, and Croatia to the northwest.
Size 88,361km² including the autonomous territories of Kosovo and Metohija (10,887km²) in the southwest and Vojvodina (21,506km²) in the north. With a surface area of 88,361km², Serbia is roughly the same size as Portugal or Austria, although Americans might prefer to compare it to the states of Maine or Kentucky. Serbia lies at the crossroads of Europe, both politically ang geographically, and its river valleys provide the fastets link for international roads and railway connections between western and central Europe, on one side, and Asia Minor and the Middle East on the other. These roads follow the course of the river Morava which splits near to the city of Niš leaving the southern Morava to lead the way to Thessaloniki, and the valley of the Nišava to lead east to Sofia and Istanbul.
Climate A temperate, continental climate, with warm summers up to 30º C and snowy winters down to -5ºC in mountain areas. The climate is moderate continental, with four distinct seasons. The average air temperature in Belgrade is 11.9ºC.
Longest river The Danube (588km), flowing west to east through Serbia.
Highest peak Djeravica (2,656m)
Population Around 10 million including Kosovo-Metohija (2002 estimate), of whom approximately 66% are Serbs and 17% Albanians, with hungarians, Romanians, Croatians, Bulgarians, Roma and Vlachs among a total of 37 minorty groups.
Government Parliamentary democracy
Capital Belgrade (population approximately 1.6 million)
Major cities and towns Novi Sad (300,000), Niš (250,000), Kragujevac (177,000), Leskovac (156,000), Subotica (150,000)
Language The official language is Serbian, which is written in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.
Religion The main religion is Eastern Orthodox with minorities of Islam and Catholic and Protestant Christian.
Weights and measures Metric
Time GMT + 1
Currency Serbian dinar ( 1 dinar=100 para)
International telephone code +381
Electricity 220 volts AC, 50 Hz. Round, two-pin sockets
Public holidays january 1-2 (New Year), january 7-8 (Orthodox Christmas), january 13-14 (Orthodox New Year), February 15 (Statehood Day), May 1-2 (Labour days), Orthodox Easter is variable.
Flag Red, blue and white horizontal stripes.
Birds In total, 380 different species of birds have been recorded, a large number of which pass through on passage to their breeding grounds in northern Europe. Some 250 species find suitable habitat for breeding in the country, while some species migrate from the north to winter in Serbia.
The arrival of the Serbs
As the Roman Empire finally disintegrated in the 5th century AD, Barbarian raiders started to appear-Huns, Goths and Avars from the central Asian steppe. It was also about this time that the Slavs started to arrive. Their first appearances in the region were as raiders, but by the beginning of the 7th century they were starting to settle in considerable numbers. The first Slavs had been undifferentiated in terms of the ethnic divisions of today, but by the time they started to colonise the Balkans they could be recognised as two distinct groups according to the route of their migration into the region. The Slavs who would later become the Croats, that occupied the western territories, migrated from lands they had established in southern Poland, while the other group, the proto-Serbs, made their in the lands that lay to the south of the Danube, having moved from an area that is now the Czech Republic where they had been briefly settled. These two tribes already had, and would continue to have closely entwined histories; quarrelsome cousins who then as now, spoke an almost identical language. It was these Slavic tribes, together with the Romanised pastoralits, the Vlachs that displaced or absorbed the Illyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Romans and Dacians living in the western Balkan region as the time. Just a small coastal enclave of Illyrian language and culture managed to survive the influx intact.