FIND YOUR COUNTRY: Serbia

Serbia /ˈsɜrbiə/ (help·info) (Serbian: Србија, Srbija), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: Република Србија, Republika Srbija), is a country located in both Central and Southeastern Europe. Its territory covers southern part of the Pannonian Plain and central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia and Albania^[6] to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro to the west. Belgrade is the capital of Serbia and the largest city.

After the Slavic settlement in the Balkans, Serbs formed a medieval kingdom that evolved into a Serbian Empire, which reached its peak in the 14th century. In the 16th century Serbian lands were subjected to Ottoman conquest. Serbia regained independence from the Ottoman Empire in a 19th century revolution and subsequently expanded its territory. Following the end of World War I, it united with other South Slavic peoples into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After World War II it became a federal unit within Socialist Yugoslavia. The dissolution of Yugoslavia in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s saw the country become a member of Federal Yugoslavia until the Montenegrin independence referendum of 2006 made Serbia a single independent unit.

In February 2008, the parliament of Kosovo declared independence from Serbia after turmoil of 1990s, ten years of UN administration and unsettled negotiations on its final status. The response from the international community has been mixed. Serbia still regards Kosovo as its southern province governed by the UN.

Serbia is a member of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Council of Europe which it presided over in 2007. It is also a potential candidate for membership in the European Union and a militarily neutral country.