Serbia
Name
| Official name | Republic of Serbia — Republika Srbija (Република Србија); Serbia (Srbija, Србија) the short form |
|---|---|
| Former names | Serbia and Montenegro, the State Union (4 February 2003 – 5 June 2006); the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (27 April 1992 – 2003), of Serbia and Montenegro; the Socialist Republic of Serbia (1945–92) and the People's Republic of Serbia (1945–63) inside Yugoslavia; the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (1 December 1918) renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929); the Kingdom of Serbia (6 March 1882 – 1918); the Principality of Serbia (1815–82), autonomous from 1830 and independent from 13 July 1878; the Serbian Empire of 1346–71 and the Kingdom of 1217; the Grand Principality of Raška of the Nemanjić; the Belgrade Pashalik of the Ottomans; Moesia and Pannonia of the Romans |
| Demonym | Serbian; a Serb (Srbin, Srpkinja) of the people, "Serbian" of the state |
| Meaning of the name | The land of the Serbs (Srbi), the ethnonym the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII recorded in the tenth century in "De Administrando Imperio" for the people who came to the Balkans in the seventh; its origin is unsettled — an Old Slavic word for the kin or the ally in one reading, the "Serboi" of the Caucasus in Pliny and Ptolemy in another, the Sorbs of Lusatia in Germany the cousins who kept the name in the north; "Srbija" in Serbian, "Serbia" in Latin and the languages of the west |
| Motto | None by law — "Samo sloga Srbina spasava," "Only unity saves the Serbs," the folk reading of the four firesteels of the Serbian cross as four Cyrillic S's, on the coat of arms' shield since the middle ages; widely cited |
| Kosovo and Metohija | By the Constitution of 2006 and its preamble an autonomous province of Serbia "with substantial autonomy"; under United Nations administration since Security Council resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999; declared independent as the Republic of Kosovo on 17 February 2008, a declaration the International Court of Justice found in 2010 broke no international law and that more than 100 of the 193 UN members recognize by Pristina's count — Belgrade, which counts the recognitions it says have since been withdrawn, does not, nor do Russia, China, Spain and four other EU states; the EU-facilitated dialogue of the Brussels Agreement of 19 April 2013 and the Ohrid agreement of 18 March 2023 that both sides accepted as binding and neither has fully carried out; the figures of this page exclude Kosovo unless they say otherwise (LAW 2: both positions stated) |
Quick facts
| Capital | Belgrade (Beograd) — at the confluence of the Sava and the Danube; about 1.68 million in the City of Belgrade of 17 municipalities (census of 2022), 1.2 million in the city proper, a quarter of the country |
|---|---|
| Largest cities | Belgrade; Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina on the Danube, about 370,000 in the city territory; Niš of the south, about 250,000, the Naissus of Constantine's birth; Kragujevac of Šumadija and the Stellantis plant, about 170,000; Subotica of the north and the Hungarians, about 125,000; Leskovac, Kruševac, Pančevo, Čačak, Zrenjanin, Kraljevo, Novi Pazar of Sandžak, Smederevo of the steelworks, Šabac, Valjevo, Užice, Vranje and Sombor |
| Official language | Serbian, in the Cyrillic script by Article 10 of the Constitution, the Latin script in everyday use beside it and protected Cyrillic by the law of 2021; the minority languages in official use where a minority is 15% of a municipality — Hungarian, Bosnian, Albanian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, Rusyn, Bulgarian, Macedonian — and the six official languages of Vojvodina's provincial administration (Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Rusyn, Croatian); Serbian one of the standard forms of the language shared with Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin |
| Currency | Serbian dinar — RSD, дин.; 100 para; the National Bank of Serbia; about 117 to the euro, held in a managed float |
| Time zone | Central European Time, UTC+1; summer time UTC+2, the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October |
| Calling code | +381 |
| Internet domain | .rs (since 2008, replacing Yugoslavia's .yu) and .срб (Cyrillic, since 2011) |
| ISO 3166 codes | RS · SRB · 688 |
| Vehicle registration code | SRB |
| Driving side | Right |
| Electricity | 230 V, 50 Hz; plug types C and F |
| Independence | 5 June 2006 — the National Assembly declared Serbia the successor of the State Union after Montenegro's referendum of 21 May 2006 (55.5% for independence) and declaration of 3 June; 13 July 1878, the Congress of Berlin recognized the Principality independent of the Ottoman Empire, the date the country marks as the independence of the modern state; 15 February 1804, the First Serbian Uprising at Orašac under Karađorđe, the birth of the modern state the Statehood Day keeps; 1217, the kingdom of Stefan the First-Crowned |
| National days | 15 and 16 February, Statehood Day (Sretenje, Candlemas) — the uprising of 1804 and the Sretenje Constitution of 1835, by the law of 2001; 28 June, Vidovdan, Saint Vitus' Day, the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 and the day of the Sarajevo shots of 1914, a working holiday; 11 November, Armistice Day, since 2012, with the Natalie's ramonda on the lapel; 1 and 2 January; 7 January, Orthodox Christmas; Orthodox Good Friday to Easter Monday; 1 and 2 May; 27 January, Saint Sava's Day, the schools' patron, a working holiday; the slava of every family, the patron saint's day |
| Constitution | 8 November 2006 — adopted by the National Assembly on 30 September 2006 and confirmed by the referendum of 28 and 29 October 2006 (53% of the electorate), promulgated on 8 November, the "Mitrovdan Constitution": a unitary parliamentary republic of a directly elected president of five years and two terms, a government answerable to a National Assembly of 250, the two autonomous provinces, Cyrillic, the preamble that names Kosovo and Metohija "an integral part of the territory of Serbia"; amended by the judiciary referendum of 16 January 2022 (60% yes on a 30% turnout) that took the election of judges and prosecutors from the Assembly to the councils, the EU's condition; the earlier constitutions of 1835 (Sretenje), 1838, 1869, 1888, 1901, 1903, 1947, 1963, 1974, 1990 and 2006 |
| Population | 6,647,003 at the census of October 2022 (without Kosovo); 6,549,901 by the Statistical Office's estimate for 2025, published in July 2026 — falling about 0.5% a year |
| Area | 88,499 km² (34,170 sq mi) with Kosovo and Metohija, as the Constitution and the Statistical Office count it; 77,589 km² (29,957 sq mi) without — landlocked; the water of the Danube, the Sava, the Tisa and the Đerdap lake within it |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | A horizontal tricolor of three equal bands of red, blue and white — the Pan-Slavic colors of the Russian tricolor reversed, the Serbs' since the 1830s — in the proportion 2:3, with the lesser coat of arms set on the bands centered vertically and shifted toward the hoist by one-seventh of the flag's length: the white double-headed eagle of the Nemanjić on a red shield under the royal crown, the two golden fleurs-de-lis at its talons, and on its breast the red shield of the Serbian cross with the four white firesteels of the "Only unity saves the Serbs"; the state flag of the coat of arms flies on the state's buildings and the civil flag of the plain tricolor beside it; the colors fixed by the standard of 2010 at Pantone 1797 C red and 541 C blue; restored to the state flag by the Assembly's recommendation of 17 August 2004, sanctioned by Article 7 of the Constitution of 2006 and regulated by the Law on the Appearance and Use of the Coat of Arms, the Flag and the Anthem of 11 May 2009, the arms redrawn on 11 November 2010; the tricolor of the Principality's firman of 1839, of the Kingdom of 1882 with its arms, of the socialist republic with the red star of 1946 to 1991 and of the plain tricolor of 1992 to 2004.Flag of Serbia |
|---|---|
| Coat of arms | The lesser arms: on a red shield, the white double-headed eagle with the golden beak, tongue and talons, two golden fleurs-de-lis beneath it, on its breast the red escutcheon of the white Serbian cross between four white firesteels, the whole under the royal crown of the Karađorđević; the greater arms the same shield on an ermine-lined purple mantle under the crown — the arms of the Kingdom of Serbia of 1882 that the Assembly restored on 17 August 2004 and the Constitution of 2006 sanctioned, drawn anew in the Government's standard of 11 November 2010; the eagle of the Nemanjić dynasty and of the Byzantine emperors, the cross with the firesteels the emblem of the Serbian church and state since the fourteenth century |
| National anthem | "Bože pravde" ("God of Justice") — the words of Jovan Đorđević and the music of the Slovene composer Davorin Jenko, written in 1872 for Đorđević's play "Marko's Saber" as a prayer for the young Prince Milan, the anthem of the Kingdom of Serbia from 1882 to 1918 and a part of the Yugoslav anthem after, restored by the recommendation of 2004, sanctioned by the Constitution of 2006 and regulated by the law of 2009, its "Serbian king" become "Serbian lands" in the republic's text; "Hey, Slavs" the anthem of the Yugoslav years |
| National motto | None by law; "Samo sloga Srbina spasava" — "Only unity saves the Serbs" — the folk reading of the four firesteels; widely cited |
| National colors | Red, blue and white — the flag's bands; the red-and-white of the sports teams |
| National animal | The white double-headed eagle of the arms and the gray wolf of the folk songs, the eastern imperial eagle of the plains — none designated by law; the lynx of the Tara; the Balkan chamois; widely cited |
| National flower | Natalie's ramonda, the "phoenix flower" of the Sićevo gorge that revives after drying, the symbol of Armistice Day since 2012 for the army's revival after the retreat of 1915; the plum of the orchards and the šljivovica; the oak of the badnjak, the Yule log of the Orthodox Christmas Eve; the Serbian spruce, Picea omorika, the living fossil Josif Pančić found on the Tara in 1875; none designated by law; widely cited |
| National dish | Ćevapi and pljeskavica of the grill, sarma of the cabbage leaves, gibanica of the cheese pastry, Karađorđeva šnicla, the ajvar of the roasted peppers, the kajmak, the prebranac, the burek of the bakeries; the rakija of šljivovica, the plum brandy whose preparation and use UNESCO listed in 2022; the wines of the Župa and the Fruška Gora; none designated by law; widely cited |
| National sport | Basketball of the world champions of 1998 and 2002 as Yugoslavia and of Nikola Jokić's three NBA MVP awards, water polo of the three Olympic golds in a row of 2016, 2020 and 2024, tennis of Novak Djokovic's 24 Grand Slam titles and the Davis Cup of 2010, volleyball of the women's world titles of 2018 and 2022, football of Red Star's European Cup of 1991 and the "eternal derby" with Partizan, handball; none designated by law; widely cited |
| The slava and the kolo | The slava, each family's celebration of its patron saint with the slava bread, the wheat and the candle, the custom found nowhere else in the Orthodox world and inscribed by UNESCO in 2014 as Serbia's first intangible heritage; the kolo, the circle dance of every wedding and festival, inscribed in 2017; the singing to the gusle, the one-stringed fiddle of the epic songs, inscribed in 2018; the Zlakusa pottery of the hand wheel, 2020; the šljivovica, 2022 |
| Patron saint | Saint Sava (Rastko Nemanjić, c. 1175–1236), the prince who became a monk on Mount Athos, the first archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian church of 1219, the founder of Hilandar and the Studenica, the patron of the schools whose day of 27 January the schools keep, the church of Saint Sava on the Vračar plateau of Belgrade built on the spot where the Ottomans burned his relics in 1594 |
| Symbol status | The flag, the arms and the anthem by the recommendation of 2004, Article 7 of the Constitution of 2006, the law of 2009 and the standard of 2010; Statehood Day by the law of 2001; the slava, the kolo, the gusle, the Zlakusa pottery and the šljivovica by UNESCO; the animal, the flower, the dish, the motto and the sport widely cited, none designated |
Geography
| Location | Southeastern and central Europe, the Balkan Peninsula — the Pannonian Plain of Vojvodina in the north and the Dinaric, the Carpathian, the Balkan and the Rhodope mountains that meet in the south; landlocked, the Adriatic 200 km away through Montenegro at Bar and the Black Sea down the Danube; the crossroads of the Morava-Vardar corridor between central Europe and the Aegean; 41°51′ to 46°11′ north and 18°49′ to 23°01′ east |
|---|---|
| Land borders | 2,322 km (1,443 mi) without Kosovo, by the Factbook count — Romania 531 km on the Danube and the Banat plain; Kosovo 366 km, the administrative line Belgrade does not call a border; Bosnia and Herzegovina 345 km on the Drina; Bulgaria 344 km over the Stara Planina; Croatia 314 km on the Danube and through Srem, with the islands of the Danube still disputed; Hungary 164 km across the Bačka plain at Horgoš; Montenegro 157 km over the Sandžak; North Macedonia 101 km at Preševo; the Danube–Tisa–Danube canal the inner water border of Vojvodina |
| Coastline | None — landlocked; the Danube of 588 km the country's waterway to the sea, Bar in Montenegro the port of the railway of 1976, Thessaloniki the port of the Morava corridor |
| Highest point | Midžor, 2,169 m (7,116 ft), in the Stara Planina on the Bulgarian border, the highest outside Kosovo; Đeravica in the Prokletije, 2,656 m (8,714 ft), the highest of the territory claimed, in Kosovo; Pančić's Peak on Kopaonik 2,017 m; Besna Kobila 1,923 m; the Tara 1,591 m; Zlatibor's Tornik 1,496 m; Fruška Gora 539 m, the lone mountain of the plain |
| Lowest point | The Danube at the Timok's mouth near Prahovo on the Romanian and Bulgarian border, about 35 m (115 ft) |
| Mean elevation | About 442 m (1,450 ft) |
| Rivers | The Danube, 588 km through Serbia of its 2,850, the border with Croatia and Romania and the country's main street from Bezdan to the Iron Gates, its Serbian stretch the longest of any country but Romania's; the Sava, 206 km from the Croatian border to Belgrade; the Tisa, 164 km through Vojvodina; the Velika Morava, 185 km, the river wholly Serbian, formed at Stalać by the Zapadna Morava of 308 km and the Južna Morava of 295 km, the corridor of the railways and the motorway; the Drina, 220 km of the Bosnian border, the "green river"; the Ibar, 272 km, of the monasteries and the Trepča; the Timok of the Bulgarian border; the Tamiš, the Begej and the Karaš of the Banat; the Nišava of Niš; the Uvac of the meanders and the griffon vultures; 92% of the country drains to the Black Sea by the Danube, the far south to the Aegean by the Pčinja and the Dragovištica and the Adriatic by the White Drin of Kosovo |
| Lakes | Few natural — the Palić of Subotica, 5.6 km², the glacial lake of the spa, and the Ludaš; the reservoirs — the Đerdap lake of 253 km² behind the Iron Gate dam of 1972, the largest lake of the country, the Vlasina at 1,213 m with its floating peat islands, the Perućac of the Drina and the Zaovine of the Tara, the Zlatar, the Gazivoda of Kosovo's water, the Bovan; the Obedska bara and the Carska bara of the wetlands; the Danube–Tisa–Danube canal system of 929 km |
| Terrain | The Pannonian Plain of Vojvodina in the north — the Bačka, the Banat and the Srem of the black earth at 80 to 120 m, the Fruška Gora and the Vršac hills the lone risings, the Deliblato sands the largest sandy area of Europe; the hills and the low mountains of Šumadija, "the forest land," south of the Sava and the Danube; the Dinaric mountains of the west of the Tara, the Zlatibor, the Golija and the Kopaonik; the Serbian Carpathians and the Stara Planina of the east of the limestone and the karst of the Đerdap, the Kučaj and the Resava cave; the Rhodope of the southeast of the Besna Kobila and the Vlasina plateau; the Morava valley of the cities from Belgrade to Niš and Vranje; the Đerdap gorge of the Danube of 100 km, the largest in Europe; the Đavolja Varoš of the 202 earth pyramids near Kuršumlija |
| Climate | Moderately continental — the hot summers of the plain of 30°C and the Belgrade Julys of 23°C on average, the winters of about 1°C in the Belgrade Januarys with the snow of the mountains from November to March, the mountain climate above 1,000 m of 6°C on average; 540 to 820 mm of rain a year in the lowlands, up to 1,500 mm in the southwest, the June rains and the February dry; the record high 44.9°C at Smederevska Palanka on 24 July 2007, the record low −39.5°C at Karajukića Bunari on the Pešter plateau on 13 January 1985; the košava, the southeast wind of the Danube gorge that blows for days over Belgrade and the Banat at 50 km/h and more; the heat waves of 2007, 2012, 2017, 2024 and 2025 and the droughts of the maize |
| Natural hazards | The floods of the Sava, the Danube and the Morava — the May 2014 floods of the Kolubara and the Sava that drowned Obrenovac, killed more than 50 people in Serbia and cost €1.5 billion, the worst on record, the floods of 2006, 2020 and 2023; the earthquakes of the Kraljevo quake of 3 November 2010, magnitude 5.4, two dead, the Mionica quake of 1998 and the Kopaonik of 1980; the droughts and the heat of 2012 and 2024; the wildfires of the summers of 2024 and 2025 on the Stara Planina and the Zlatibor; the landslides of the rains of 2014; the winter smog of Belgrade, Valjevo and Užice of the lignite and the wood stoves, among Europe's worst air; the Košava's gales; the ice on the Danube of the winters of the 1950s |
| Natural resources | Lignite of the Kolubara and the Kostolac basins, among the largest reserves in Europe and 70% of the electricity; copper and gold of Bor and Majdanpek, the Zijin mines of the Čukaru Peki; lead and zinc of the Trepča in Kosovo; the lithium and boron of the jadarite of the Jadar valley near Loznica, the mineral named for the river in 2004, one of the largest lithium deposits in Europe by Rio Tinto's count and the project the company mothballed on 13 November 2025; oil and gas of the Banat fields of NIS; iron ore; antimony; chromite; magnesite; the limestone, the marble and the building stone; the arable black earth of Vojvodina and the Morava; the forests of 29%; the hydropower of the Danube and the Drina; the mineral springs of some 60 spas of Vrnjačka Banja, Sokobanja and Niška Banja |
| Land use | Agricultural land about 58% — the arable of the plain and the orchards of the plums and the raspberries of Arilje and Valjevo; forest about 29% by the national inventory, 32% by the Factbook, the beech and the oak of the mountains; the built land of the cities; the protected areas of 8,580 km², about 10% |
| National parks | 5 — Fruška Gora (1960), the mountain of the plain of the 16 monasteries and the linden forests, 25,000 ha; Đerdap (1974), the Iron Gates of the Danube, the Golubac fortress, Lepenski Vir and the Trajan's plaque, 64,000 ha, the largest; Tara (1981), the mountain of the Drina canyon, the Serbian spruce and the brown bears, 25,000 ha; Kopaonik (1981), the ski resort of the Pančić's Peak, 12,000 ha; Šar Planina (1986), 39,000 ha, in Kosovo; the nature parks of the Stara Planina, the Golija, the Kučaj and the Gornje Podunavlje, the reserves of the Deliblato sands, the Obedska bara, the Uvac, the Zasavica and the Carska bara, the Đavolja Varoš monument; 462 protected areas in all |
| UNESCO World Heritage | 5 — Stari Ras and Sopoćani (1979), the first capital of Raška and the monastery of the frescoes of 1265; Studenica Monastery (1986), the marble church of Stefan Nemanja of 1190, the mother church of the Nemanjić; Medieval Monuments in Kosovo (2004, extended 2006) — the Dečani, the Patriarchate of Peć, Gračanica and the Virgin of Ljeviš — inscribed in Serbia's name and on the List in Danger since 2006; Gamzigrad-Romuliana (2007), the palace of the emperor Galerius near Zaječar of about 300; the Stećci medieval tombstones (2016), shared with Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro; 12 sites on the tentative list; the slava, the kolo, the gusle, the Zlakusa pottery and the šljivovica on the intangible list |
| Administrative divisions | The two autonomous provinces — Vojvodina of Novi Sad, about 1.74 million people, its Assembly of 120 and its government, and Kosovo and Metohija, in name; 29 administrative districts (okrug) and the City of Belgrade, five of the districts in Kosovo — Belgrade; North Bačka, Central Banat, North Banat, South Banat, West Bačka, South Bačka and Srem of Vojvodina; Mačva, Kolubara, Podunavlje, Braničevo, Šumadija, Pomoravlje, Bor, Zaječar, Zlatibor, Moravica, Raška, Rasina, Nišava, Toplica, Pirot, Jablanica and Pčinja of central Serbia; Kosovo, Peć, Prizren, Kosovska Mitrovica and Kosovo-Pomoravlje of Kosovo; 145 municipalities and 29 cities by the law of 2007, the units of local self-government, Belgrade of 17 city municipalities and Niš, Novi Sad, Požarevac, Užice and Vranje of several; 6,167 settlements, 207 of them towns; the five statistical regions of Belgrade, Vojvodina, Šumadija and Western Serbia, Southern and Eastern Serbia and Kosovo and Metohija |
People
| Population | 6,647,003 (census of 2022, without Kosovo); 6,549,901 (estimate for 2025, Statistical Office) |
|---|---|
| Population density | About 84 per km² (218 per sq mi) — Belgrade at about 520, Vojvodina at about 80, the Bor, the Zaječar and the Pirot districts of the east about 30 |
| Population growth | About −0.5% a year — 59,483 births against 95,247 deaths in 2025, a natural decrease of 35,764, the fifth census in a row to fall since the 7.8 million of 1991, the emigration of the young to Germany, Austria and Switzerland and the immigration of the Russians of 2022, the Chinese of the mines and the workers of Asia; one of the fastest-shrinking countries of Europe |
| Median age | About 44 years — 22.6% aged 65 and over, 14.4% under 15 |
| Life expectancy | About 75 years — 73.7 for men, 78.3 for women (2024) |
| Fertility rate | About 1.6 births per woman (1.63 in 2024) |
| Urban population | About 60% |
| Adult literacy | About 99% |
| Ethnic groups | Serbs 80.6% by the census of 2022; Hungarians 2.7%, of the Bačka and the Banat around Subotica; Bosniaks 2.3%, of the Sandžak of Novi Pazar; Roma 2.0% by the count and many more by the estimates; Albanians 0.9%, of Preševo and Bujanovac, most of whom boycotted the count; Slovaks 0.6%, of the Bački Petrovac and the Kovačica of the naive painters; Croats 0.6%, of Subotica and Srem; Montenegrins, Romanians, Vlachs of the Timok, Macedonians, Bulgarians of Bosilegrad and Dimitrovgrad, Rusyns of Ruski Krstur, Bunjevci, Muslims by nationality, Yugoslavs, Gorani, Germans, Ukrainians, Russians; 10.6% undeclared, regional or unknown; the national minority councils of some two dozen minorities |
| Languages | Serbian by 84% as the mother tongue, in Cyrillic and Latin, the Ekavian of Serbia and the Ijekavian of the west; Hungarian by 2.5%, Bosnian by 2.2%, Romani by 1.2%, Albanian by 1%, Slovak, Romanian, Vlach, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Rusyn; the English of the young and the German of the diaspora; the Vukovian orthography of "write as you speak" of Vuk Karadžić's reform of 1818 and 1868, one letter for each of the 30 sounds |
| Religion | Serbian Orthodox 81.1% by the census of 2022 — the Serbian Orthodox Church of the autocephaly of 1219 and the patriarchate of 1346 and of 1920, Patriarch Porfirije since 19 February 2021 at the Belgrade patriarchate, the Julian calendar of the Christmas of 7 January, the slava, the badnjak, the monasteries of Studenica, Žiča, Sopoćani, Dečani and Hilandar on Athos; Catholic 3.9%, the Hungarians, the Croats and the Bunjevci of Vojvodina; Muslim 4.2%, the Bosniaks of the Sandžak, the Albanians of the south and the Roma; Protestant 0.8%, the Slovaks of the Lutheran church and the Hungarian Reformed; the Jews of the Belgrade synagogue of 1926, the community of some 30,000 before 1941 and a few thousand after; no religion 1.1%; 7.9% undeclared; the church the most trusted institution of the polls, the state secular by the Constitution |
| Human Development Index | 0.833 (2023 data, 2025 report) — very high; 62nd of 193 |
| Science and letters | Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), the Serb of Smiljan in Croatia's Lika, the inventor of the alternating-current motor and the polyphase system, of the airport, the 100-dinar note and the museum of Belgrade that keeps his ashes; Mihajlo Pupin (1858–1935) of Idvor in the Banat, the Columbia professor of the Pupin coil of the long-distance telephone; Milutin Milanković (1879–1958), the Milanković cycles of the ice ages; Josif Pančić, the botanist of the spruce; Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864), the reformer of the language and the collector of the folk songs; Dositej Obradović; Petar Petrović Njegoš of "The Mountain Wreath" of 1847; Ivo Andrić (1892–1975), the Nobel Prize in Literature of 1961 for "The Bridge on the Drina," the Bosnian-born Serb of Belgrade; Danilo Kiš, Miloš Crnjanski, Milorad Pavić of the "Dictionary of the Khazars"; Marina Abramović, the performance artist; Emir Kusturica of the two Palmes d'Or; the University of Belgrade of 1808 and 1905; the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts of 1841 |
| Sport | Novak Djokovic, born in Belgrade in 1987, the winner of 24 Grand Slam singles titles, the men's record, of the Olympic gold of Paris 2024 and of the most weeks at No. 1, the Davis Cup of 2010 of Serbia; Nikola Jokić of Sombor, the NBA's most valuable player of 2021, 2022 and 2024 and the champion of 2023 with Denver; basketball's world titles of 1998 and 2002 as Yugoslavia, Serbia's world silver of 2014 and 2023, Olympic silver of 2016 and bronze of 2024, the Partizan and Red Star of the EuroLeague and the "Grobari" and "Delije" of the Belgrade derby; water polo's Olympic golds of 2016, 2020 and 2024, the first three in a row since Hungary, the world titles of 2005, 2009 and 2015; volleyball's Olympic gold of 2000 as Yugoslavia and the women's world titles of 2018 and 2022 of Tijana Bošković; Red Star's European Cup and Intercontinental Cup of 1991, the World Cups of 2010, 2018 and 2022; the mixed air-pistol gold of Zorana Arunović and Damir Mikec of Paris 2024; Ivana Španović's long-jump titles; the Belgrade Marathon; the Guča trumpet festival and the EXIT of Novi Sad of the summers |
| Diaspora | About 800,000 citizens abroad by the official count and 2 to 4 million Serbs and their descendants by the wider ones — Germany of the "Gastarbeiter" of the 1960s and the 300,000 of today, Austria of the 200,000 of Vienna, Switzerland, France, Sweden, the United States of Chicago, the "Serbian capital" abroad, and the Ohio and the Pittsburgh steel towns, Canada of Toronto, Australia of Melbourne, the Serbs of Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo who are not the diaspora but the nation; the remittances of billions of euros a year; the Russians of 2022 of the 50,000 residents of Belgrade; the emigration of the doctors and the engineers the country counts |
Government
| Form of government | Unitary parliamentary republic under the Constitution of 2006 — the president directly elected for five years, two terms, the head of state who names the candidate for prime minister, promulgates the laws, commands the army and calls the elections; the government of the prime minister and the ministers elected by the National Assembly of 250, elected for four years by proportional representation from one constituency; the two autonomous provinces; the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court; "partly free" by Freedom House and an "electoral autocracy" since 2014 by the V-Dem Institute, "a functioning democracy" by the government — the power of the presidency under Vučić, who ran the country as prime minister and president for 12 years, the mark of the system in every account |
|---|---|
| President | Aleksandar Vučić (Serbian Progressive Party — SNS), since 31 May 2017 — the president since 2017 after Boris Tadić and Tomislav Nikolić; born 5 March 1970 in Belgrade, the law graduate of the University of Belgrade, the Serbian Radical Party deputy of 1993, the minister of information of the Milošević years of 1998 to 2000 whose law fined the press, the co-founder with Tomislav Nikolić of the Serbian Progressive Party in 2008 after the split from Šešelj's Radicals, its president from 2012 to 2023, the first deputy prime minister of 2012 to 2014 and the prime minister of 27 April 2014 to 31 May 2017; elected president on 2 April 2017 with about 55% in the first round and re-elected on 3 April 2022 with about 58.6% in the first round, the term to 31 May 2027; the man of the highways, the railways, the German and Chinese factories and the Belgrade Waterfront by his account, of the captured media, the courts and the "Bulgarian train" of the elections by the opposition's and of the European Parliament's resolutions; the "People's Movement for the State" registered in March 2025; the head of the "Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia" list of 25 October 2026 and its candidate for prime minister |
| The resignation announced | At the rally of 27 June 2026 Vučić said he would stay president "only a few more weeks" and on 14 September on TV Pink named the day — 27 September 2026, a Sunday, with an evening address to the nation announced from New York's United Nations week; by Article 120 of the Constitution and the Law on the President the mandate ends the moment the written resignation reaches the National Assembly, and the president of the Assembly, Ana Brnabić, replaces him for at most three months, with the power to call the parliamentary election, propose the prime minister and represent the state; the presidential election must be held within three months of the vacancy — the earliest in November, the latest in the last days of December 2026, 30 to 60 days after its calling; the plan the opposition calls a "rotation" to escape the term limit and Brussels' scrutiny, in which he would return as prime minister of a "United Serbia" government of 12 ministers, and his supporters call the answer to the students' demand for elections; his mandate would otherwise have ended on 31 May 2027 (as reported by Vreme, 021.rs, Istinomer, Danas/BBC, RFE/RL and Bloomberg, 14–25 September 2026) |
| Prime Minister | Đuro Macut (independent), since 16 April 2025 — born 1963, the endocrinologist and professor of the University of Belgrade's medical faculty, a man without a party and the third such prime minister, proposed by Vučić on 6 April 2025 and elected with 153 votes of the 199 present after Miloš Vučević's resignation of 28 January 2025 was acknowledged on 19 March; his cabinet the continuation of the Vučević ministers — Siniša Mali the finance minister and first deputy prime minister, Ivica Dačić of the Socialists the interior minister and deputy prime minister, Marko Đurić foreign affairs, Bratislav Gašić defense, Dubravka Đedović Handanović mining and energy of the NIS negotiations, Aleksandra Sofronijević construction, transport and infrastructure; the government "in a technical mandate" since the Assembly's dissolution of 9 September 2026, the day it called for elections "as proof of the unbreakable will of a democratic Serbia"; the prime ministers of the republic — Vojislav Koštunica, Mirko Cvetković, Ivica Dačić, Vučić, Ana Brnabić of 2017 to 2024, Vučević of 2 May 2024 to 2025, Macut |
| The 2026 election | The snap parliamentary election of Sunday, 25 October 2026 — called by Vučić's decree of 9 September 2026 that dissolved the fourteenth Assembly a year before its term, after the government of 7 September proposed the dissolution; the 250 seats by the d'Hondt method from one constituency, the threshold of 3% waived for the minority lists, 40% of every list women, the polls of 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.; the lists proclaimed by the Republic Electoral Commission by 21 September, eleven, the deadline of 4 October — No. 1 "Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia" of the SNS with the pensioners' PUPS, the Radicals, the Workers' Party and five others, 209,130 valid signatures, Vučić the first name; No. 2 "Ivica Dačić – Factor of Stability" of the Socialists with United Serbia and the Greens, the SNS's partner of 14 years running alone; No. 3 "Student List – Students Win," the list of the protest movement carried by Dr. Ilija Srdanović, the cardiologist and professor of Novi Sad unknown to politics, 250 names and 69,099 valid signatures, backed by the Green–Left Front, the Democratic Party and the Movement of Free Citizens, which stood aside for it, and by Miroslav Aleksić's "People's Serbia" coalition, which submitted a list and withdrew it in the students' favor; the "Platform for a European Serbia" of Dragan Đilas's Party of Freedom and Justice and Zdravko Ponoš's Serbia Center with a list of its own announced and a promise of cooperation; "Rasim Ljajić – Humane" of the Social Democrats; the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians of Bálint Pásztor; the National Democratic Alternative of Miloš Jovanović; the SDA of Sandžak; the Russian Party of Slobodan Nikolić; the campaign of Vučić's invitation to a television debate that Srdanović declined, the students' "referendum on Vučić" and the government's "stability against chaos," the EU's observers of ODIHR, the electoral laws of May 2026 the government says met 70% of ODIHR's recommendations and the opposition and ODIHR say left the old ones unmet (as reported by RTS, RTV, Danas, N1, Bloomberg Adria and Wikipedia's election page, September 2026) |
| The 2023 election | The snap election of 17 December 2023: the "Serbia Must Not Stop" list of the SNS 48.07% and 129 seats of the 250, the "Serbia Against Violence" coalition of the opposition born of the protests after the school shooting of May 2023 24.32% and 65, the Socialists' SPS–JS–Greens 6.73% and 18, the National Democratic Alternative (NADA) 5.16% and 13, "We – Voice from the People" of Branimir Nestorović 4.82% and 13, the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians 6, the Justice and Reconciliation Party 2, the SDA of Sandžak 2, the Albanians 1, the Russian Party 1; the vote-buying, the "Bulgarian train" and the bused-in voters of Belgrade reported by CRTA and ODIHR, the opposition's protests to 30 December and the European Parliament's call of February 2024 for an inquiry, the Belgrade city vote rerun on 2 June 2024; the government of Vučević of 2 May 2024 after four months; the elections of 2022 (SNS 42.9%), 2020 (boycotted, SNS 60%), 2016, 2014 and 2012, when the SNS took power with the Socialists |
| Parliament | The National Assembly (Narodna skupština) — unicameral, 250 deputies elected for four years by closed-list proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency, the 3% threshold waived for the minorities, the House of the National Assembly of 1936 on Nikola Pašić Square in Belgrade; the fourteenth convocation of 6 February 2024, the president of the Assembly Ana Brnabić of the SNS since March 2024, the vice presidents Marina Raguš, Snežana Paunović, Elvira Kovács, Edin Đerlek, Jovan Janjić and Nevena Đurić; the groups of the dissolved Assembly — the SNS's "Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Must Not Stop" of 110, the Socialists 12, the People's Movement 12, the Party of Freedom and Justice 12, NADA 10, the Green–Left Front 10, the Democrats 8, Serbia Center 8, the pensioners, the Hungarians, the Social Democrats and the smaller of 5 and 6; dissolved by the decree of 9 September 2026 for the election of 25 October; the constitutive session within 30 days of the results and the government within 90 days of it; the Assembly of Vojvodina of 120 at Novi Sad |
| The next election | The parliamentary election of 25 October 2026, called; the presidential election within three months of Vučić's resignation of 27 September, if it comes — by the last week of December 2026, on a Sunday, the first round and a runoff two weeks after if no one wins half; the local elections of 2028 in most municipalities and the Belgrade City Assembly elected on 2 June 2024, when the SNS kept the capital with the Socialists and Aleksandar Šapić the mayor; the Vojvodina Assembly of December 2023 under Maja Gojković's provincial government since 8 May 2024 |
| The protests | The student-led protests since the fall of the concrete canopy of the Novi Sad railway station on 1 November 2024 at 11:52 that killed 16 people, at a station reopened twice after a Chinese-built reconstruction on the Belgrade–Budapest line — the 16 minutes of silence on the roads at 11:52, the "your hands are bloody" red hands, the blockades of every university faculty from November 2024, the 100,000 of Slavija Square on 22 December 2024, the "general strike" of 24 January 2025, the largest gathering in the country's history of 15 March 2025 in Belgrade, 275,000 to 325,000 by the Archive of Public Gatherings, the 180,000 to 190,000 of 23 May 2026, the marches on foot to Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac and Strasbourg, the four demands of the documents, the prosecutions, the released students and the education budget, then the demand for elections; the resignations of the construction minister Goran Vesić, the trade minister Tomislav Momirović and Prime Minister Vučević; the 13 indicted on 30 December 2024, six of the charges including Vesić's dropped by the High Court on 24 December 2025 and before the Novi Sad appeals court in 2026; the government's "color revolution" and the "foreign paid" of its media, the arrests and the pro-government "Ćaciland" camp before the Assembly, the sound-cannon allegation of 15 March the government denies, the attacks on the students of Novi Sad that made Vučević resign; the movement's Student List of 2026 and the elections it demanded (LAW 2: both sides' accounts) |
| The parties | The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of 2008, in power since the election of May 2012 with the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) of Milošević's heirs under Ivica Dačić, the two of every government of 14 years — the SNS of Miloš Vučević's presidency since 2023 and Vučić's command, the biggest party of the country of 700,000 members by its own count, the "People's Movement for the State" (NPZD) registered in March 2025 as its umbrella; the opposition — the Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP) of Dragan Đilas, the People's Movement of Serbia (NPS) of Miroslav Aleksić, the Green–Left Front (ZLF) of Radomir Lazović and Biljana Đorđević, the Democratic Party (DS) of Srđan Milivojević, the party of Đinđić and of the governments of 2000 to 2012, Serbia Center (SRCE) of Zdravko Ponoš, the Movement of Free Citizens (PSG) of Pavle Grbović, the "Platform for a European Serbia" of June 2026 of the SSP and SRCE; the national-conservative New DSS of Miloš Jovanović and the Monarchists of the NADA; the Radicals of Vojislav Šešelj with the SNS list; Nestorović's "We – Power of the People" and Branko Pavlović's "We – Voice from the People" of the anti-vaccine right; the minority parties of the Hungarians (VMSZ) with the government, the Bosniaks of the SDA and the SPP, the Albanians of the south; the Student List of 2026 that most of the opposition folded into |
| Kosovo | The province of the Constitution and the state of Pristina's declaration of 17 February 2008 — the Kosovo War of 1998–99, the NATO bombing of Serbia from 24 March to 10 June 1999, resolution 1244 and the UN administration, the KFOR of some 4,500 that still keeps the peace; the Brussels Agreement of 19 April 2013 of the Dačić and Thaçi governments that folded the Serb institutions of the north into Kosovo's law and promised the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities that Pristina has never formed; the license-plate quarrel of 2022, the barricades and Pristina's ban on the dinar of 2024, the Serb mayors of the 3% turnout, the Zvečan riot of 29 May 2023 of the 90-odd injured KFOR soldiers, the Banjska attack of 24 September 2023 in which a Kosovo policeman and three of the armed Serbs died and which the Serb List's deputy leader Milan Radoičić admitted organizing; the Ohrid agreement of 27 February and 18 March 2023 both sides call binding and neither carries out; the EU's dialogue with no meeting of the two leaders at one table since May 2023 — 40 months by the count of September 2026 — and the last Brussels day of both, 26 June 2024, without a joint session, the envoy Peter Sørensen, the separate meetings of Kaja Kallas with Vučić and Kurti in New York on 22 September 2026 and her "it is time to move forward"; Serbia's position of "no recognition ever" and the "compromise" Vučić has spoken of, Pristina's of "mutual recognition" (LAW 2: both positions) |
| The European Union | Candidate since 1 March 2012, the application of 22 December 2009, the Stabilization and Association Agreement in force since 1 September 2013, the negotiations opened on 21 January 2014 — 22 of the 35 chapters opened and two provisionally closed, the last cluster (4, the green agenda) in December 2021, the "leader of the region" of 2014 that Montenegro and Albania have passed; Cluster 3 of the competitiveness, which the Commission has called technically ready since 2021 and pushed to open in July 2026 after the reversed judicial laws and the electoral laws, blocked at the ambassadors' meeting of 8 July 2026 by eight member states — the three Baltic states, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Bulgaria and Croatia — and left to the Irish presidency; the Growth Plan of €1.5 billion at risk over the rule of law; Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos's canceled visit of September 2026 over the honors to Ratko Mladić, "incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built"; the polls of a country that leans against membership, the anti-EU camp below half in August 2026; the government's "EU by 2030" and the opposition's "no accession under this government"; the CEFTA of 2006, the Open Balkan of 2021 with Albania and North Macedonia, the Berlin Process |
| Foreign policy | The "four pillars" of Brussels, Washington, Moscow and Beijing and the military neutrality the Assembly declared in 2007 — the only country of the region outside NATO and in no alliance, a Partnership for Peace member since 2006 and a NATO bombing victim of 1999 the country does not forget; Russia of the Orthodox brotherhood, the gas contract of the 1990s prices, the veto at the Security Council over Kosovo and the sanctions of 2022 Serbia alone in Europe would not join, the "brotherly" visits and the 53,000 Russians of the emigration; China of the "steel friendship," the Zijin, the HBIS and the Linglong plants, the free-trade agreement in force since 1 July 2024, the Belgrade–Budapest railway of the Belt and Road, the Chinese police cars and the Huawei cameras of the opposition's complaint, Xi's visit of May 2024; the United States of the sanctions on NIS since October 2025 that shut the Pančevo refinery, the Kushner tower project on the bombed General Staff abandoned in December 2025 after the indictment of the minister who made it possible, the Rafale purchase of €2.7 billion from France of 29 August 2024 and the Macron visit; Hungary of Orbán the closest friend; the region of the Open Balkan, the Srebrenica resolution of the UN of May 2024 Serbia voted against and the "genocide" term Belgrade rejects, the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska Belgrade backs; the Non-Aligned Movement of Tito the country still attends as an observer; Expo 2027 the diplomacy of the year |
| Legal system | Civil law of the continental tradition — the Civil Code of the Principality of 1844, among the first in Europe after the French, the Austrian and the Dutch; the Constitutional Court of 15 judges, the Supreme Court, the appellate, the higher and the basic courts, the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime (TOK) and the war-crimes prosecutor; the High Judicial Council and the High Prosecutorial Council of the referendum of 16 January 2022 that took the appointments from the Assembly, the EU's condition; the "Mrdić laws" of 28 January 2026 that put the organized-crime and war-crimes prosecutors under the Belgrade higher prosecutor, opposed by the judges' and prosecutors' associations, the European Commissioners and the opposition and amended on 25 June 2026 on the Venice Commission's recommendations; the death penalty abolished on 26 February 2002; the same-sex partnership bill stalled since 2021; the Ribnikar school shooting of 3 May 2023, when a 13-year-old killed nine pupils and a guard, and the Mladenovac shootings of the next day of nine dead that filled the streets with "Serbia Against Violence"; the corruption the EU reports name and the "captured state" of the opposition; the media law of 2023 and the tabloids of the government's advertising the press-freedom indexes count |
| Local government | The two autonomous provinces — Vojvodina of the Assembly of 120 and the Provincial Government at Novi Sad, Maja Gojković its president since 8 May 2024, its six official languages, its statute of 2009 and its budget; Kosovo and Metohija of the Constitution, administered from Pristina since 1999 and the Office for Kosovo and Metohija of Belgrade; 145 municipalities and 29 cities of the mayors and the assemblies elected for four years, the 17 municipalities of Belgrade and the City Assembly of 110 of Aleksandar Šapić since 2022, re-elected on 2 June 2024 in the rerun vote; the 29 districts as the state's administration, not self-government; the local elections of 2024 and 2025 the opposition contested and the Zaječar and Kosjerić votes of June 2025 the SNS won narrowly |
| Defense | The Serbian Armed Forces (Vojska Srbije) — the Army, the Air Force and Air Defense and the River Flotilla, about 28,000 active, 20,000 active reserve and 170,000 passive reserve, the General Staff of Belgrade under the president as commander in chief, Bratislav Gašić the defense minister; conscription suspended by the Assembly's vote of 15 December 2010 from 1 January 2011 and the 75-day compulsory service Vučić announced in 2024, funded with €90 million, the registration of the men born in 2006 from the autumn of 2026 and the first class "normally in March" 2027 by his words of 13 September 2026 after the Pobednik 2026 exercise on the Pešter plateau, 155 days of civilian service for the objectors; the twelve Rafale fighters of the €2.7 billion contract of 29 August 2024 with France, the Chinese FK-3 missiles and CH-92 drones, the Russian MiG-29s and Pantsir, the domestic Lazar and Miloš vehicles and the Nora howitzers of the Yugoimport of the arms exports; the military neutrality resolution of 2007, the Partnership for Peace of 2006, the exercises with the NATO partners resumed and the Russian ones not held since 2022; the UN peacekeepers of Lebanon, the Central African Republic and Cyprus; the KFOR on the Kosovo line; the army of the 1999 war of 78 days |
| United Nations | Member since 1 November 2000 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the seat of Serbia since 2006 as the union's successor — the founding Yugoslavia of 1945 whose seat the union had to reapply for in 2000 after Milošević's fall; the UN administration of Kosovo under resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999; the peacekeepers; the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion of 22 July 2010 on Kosovo's declaration and its judgments of 2007 and 2015 on the genocide cases of Bosnia and Croatia; the UNESCO of the five sites; the General Assembly's Srebrenica resolution of 23 May 2024 Serbia voted against |
| Other memberships | The Council of Europe (3 April 2003); the OSCE (2000), chaired in 2015; the Partnership for Peace of NATO (2006); the Central European Free Trade Agreement (2006); the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (2000–01, as the successor); the Energy Community; the Black Sea Economic Cooperation; the Central European Initiative; the Open Balkan (2021); the Non-Aligned Movement (observer); the WTO accession applied for in 2005 and unfinished; the Regional Cooperation Council; the International Criminal Court (2001); the Bureau International des Expositions of Expo 2027; not the EU, not NATO, not the eurozone, not Schengen |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$100 billion (2025, IMF World Economic Outlook of April 2026 — US$99.95 billion); about US$112 billion forecast for 2026 — the largest economy of the Western Balkans, about the 77th of the world |
|---|---|
| GDP per capita | About US$15,300 (2025); about US$17,250 forecast for 2026 |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$32,700 (2025); about US$34,900 forecast for 2026 — the GDP at purchasing power about US$214 billion |
| GDP growth | 3.9% in 2024, 2.0% in 2025 in the year of the protests and the sanctions on the refinery, 2.8% forecast for 2026 and 3.5% a year after by the IMF, against the 4% of the government's plans; inflation about 3% in 2025 within the central bank's target of 3% ± 1.5 and about 5% projected by the IMF for 2026; unemployment about 7% (7.2% in the second quarter of 2026) and youth unemployment about 22%; the average net wage about €1,040 a month (April 2026) and the minimum about €460 in 2025, raised for 2026; the public debt about 42% of GDP, the deficit about 2–3%; the foreign reserves of about US$35 billion, a record; the investment-grade rating of BBB− from S&P since October 2024, the first in the country's history, Fitch and Moody's a notch below; the "Leap into the Future — Serbia 2027" plan of €18 billion of the Expo and the infrastructure |
| Economy by sector | Services about 60% — the trade, the transport, the state, the information technology of the exports, the tourism; industry about 30% — the cars and the parts, the electrical machines, the copper, the steel, the tires, the food, the chemicals and the pharmaceuticals of the Hemofarm, the arms; agriculture about 6% of the output and 11% of the jobs — the maize, the wheat and the sunflower of Vojvodina, the plums, the raspberries and the apples of Šumadija and the west, the pigs and the milk |
| Currency | Serbian dinar (RSD) — about 117 to the euro, 100 to the U.S. dollar (2025) |
| Trade | Exports about US$37.3 billion and imports about US$47.2 billion in 2025 — the cars of Kragujevac and the parts, the electrical machines and cables, the copper of Bor, the tires of Zrenjanin, the rubber and the plastics, the chemicals, the wheat, the maize and the fruit, the software; the European Union 62% of the exports — Germany 15%, Italy 7%, Hungary, Romania, Czechia — Bosnia 6%, China 6%, Montenegro, Turkey, North Macedonia; the imports from the EU 55%, China 15%, Turkey 5%, Russia 3% of the gas; the free-trade agreements with the EU, the CEFTA, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkey and China (July 2024) the "hub" of the investors' pitch; the current-account deficit of about US$6 billion the foreign investment covers |
| Industry and the investors | The Stellantis (Fiat) plant of Kragujevac of 2012, the Zastava of the Yugo and the "Fića" of 1955 to 2008, retooled for the electric Fiat Grande Panda from 2024–25; the HBIS steelworks of Smederevo the Chinese took over from U.S. Steel's wreck in 2016 for €46 million; the Zijin copper and gold of Bor and Majdanpek since 2018, the largest exporter of the country and its most profitable company, the Čukaru Peki mine of 2021; the Linglong tires of Zrenjanin, the Yura and the Leoni cable plants, the Bosch, the Siemens, the Continental and the ZF of the German cars, the Toyo tires, the Mei Ta and the Minth of the Chinese; the Hemofarm of Vršac; the Yugoimport SDPR and the Krušik of Valjevo of the arms exports; the Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) of the state, the Telekom Srbija of the state; the software of the Belgrade and Novi Sad hubs — Microsoft's development center, the Nordeus, the FishingBooker, the Frame of Nutanix — ICT exports of €4.1 billion in 2024, about 115,000 people in 4,000 companies, the sector of the "Serbia Creates" campaign; the Delta, the MK and the Nelt of the domestic tycoons; the subsidies per job to the foreign investors the opposition counts |
| NIS and the sanctions | The Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) — the Pančevo refinery, the country's only, the Banat oil and gas fields and about 80% of the fuel market, sold to Russia's Gazprom in 2008 for €400 million in the gas-pipeline deal of the Kosovo year; sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in January 2025 as a Gazprom Neft company, the sanctions in force from 8 October 2025 after repeated waivers, the JANAF pipeline from Croatia's Omišalj cut and the refinery halted on 25 November 2025 for 36 days in the winter, restarted in January 2026 on a temporary license; Gazprom Neft and the Gazprom affiliate's 56.15% under sale to Hungary's MOL by the binding heads of agreement of 19 January 2026, the shareholders' agreement of the Serbian state (29.87%) with MOL of 16 June 2026 that binds the refinery to ten years of output and buys the state 5% more, the purchase agreement "in its final phase" and awaiting the Treasury's OFAC by the negotiation and operating licenses last extended to 30 September 2026, Abu Dhabi's ADNOC in the talks; Vučić's offer of €1.4 billion the Russians refused and the nationalization threat of November 2025; the gas contract with Gazprom of the 1990s prices, expiring, the TurkStream branch of 1 January 2021 its route (as reported by Reuters, MOL Group, Interfax, Balkan Insight, Al Jazeera, S&P Global and Kurir/Naslovi, December 2025 – September 2026) |
| The farms | The breadbasket of Vojvodina — maize of 6 million tons and wheat of 2 million, the sunflower, the sugar beet and the soybean of the Bačka and the Banat black earth, the 5.3 billion dollars of the food exports of 2024; plums, the world's second producer at about 580,000 tons, the šljivovica of every village still and the prunes of the Valjevo; raspberries, the world's third producer at about 127,000 tons and long the largest exporter, the "red gold" of Arilje and Ivanjica in the freezers of Europe; the apples of the new orchards, the sour cherries, the grapes of the 56,000 ha of vineyards of the Župa, the Fruška Gora and the Negotin; the pigs and the Šumadija cattle, the Pirot cheese and the kajmak; the small farms of a few hectares and the tycoons' estates of Vojvodina; the drought of 2012 and 2024 |
| Mining and energy | The lignite of the Kolubara and the Kostolac open pits, some 40 million tons a year, that fires the Nikola Tesla plants of Obrenovac of about 3,000 MW, among the largest in the Balkans, and the Kostolac B3 the Chinese built in 2024–25 — coal about 65–70% of the electricity, hydro about 25–30% from the Đerdap I of 1972 on the Danube shared with Romania, about 1,000 MW on the Serbian side, the Đerdap II, the Bajina Bašta and the Drina and Lim plants, the wind of the Banat and the solar of the new parks a few percent, the gas of Pančevo; the Elektroprivreda Srbije of the breakdown of December 2021 and the imports that cost it hundreds of millions of euros; the copper and gold of Zijin's Bor and Majdanpek and the Dundee of the Timok; the Jadar lithium of Rio Tinto — the license the government revoked on 20 January 2022 after the road blockades, restored by the Constitutional Court on 11 July and the government on 16 July 2024, the EU memorandum of July 2024, the "strategic project" of the European Commission of 4 June 2025, the 58,000 tons of lithium carbonate a year of the plan for the batteries of Europe, and the project Rio Tinto mothballed on 13 November 2025 for "the lack of progress in permitting" with the lithium price down 85% — the largest environmental protests of the country, the "Ne damo Jadar" of the Loznica valley against the government's case of the jobs and the battery value chain (LAW 2); the oil and gas of the Banat; the nuclear ban of 1989 the Assembly lifted in 2024 |
| Tourism | About 2 million foreign arrivals a year of the record years of 2024 and 2025 — the Belgrade of the nightlife of the Sava rafts, the Skadarlija, the fortress and the Waterfront, the Novi Sad of the EXIT festival of July since 2000 on the Petrovaradin fortress, Europe's "best major festival" of 2013 and 2017, and the Guča trumpet festival of August since 1961, the Kopaonik and the Zlatibor of the skiing and the mountain hotels, the Tara and the Uvac of the canyons, the Đerdap and the Golubac of the Danube cruises, the monasteries of the Nemanjić, the spas of Vrnjačka Banja and Sokobanja of the 60 mineral springs, the Šarganska Osmica narrow-gauge and Kusturica's Drvengrad, the Niš of Constantine and the Skull Tower, the Subotica of the Art Nouveau, the Novi Pazar of the Ottoman Sandžak; the Chinese and the Russians of the visa-free travel, the Turks and the Germans; the Expo 2027 of the 6 million visitors the country expects from 15 May to 15 August 2027 |
| Public finances | The budget of about €22 billion of 2026 — the deficit of about 3% of GDP, the public debt of about 42% of GDP, about €37 billion, down from the 70% of 2015 by the IMF program of 2015–18 and the wage and pension freeze of Vučić's austerity, the reserves of €30 billion; the VAT of 20%, the income tax of 10% flat and the corporate of 15% the investors' lure; the pensions of 1.7 million retirees the elections raise; the "Leap into the Future" of €18 billion to 2027 — the Expo, the national stadium of 52,000 at Surčin over its €250 million budget by more than €100 million, the Belgrade metro, the railways and the highways; the Belgrade Waterfront of the Eagle Hills of Abu Dhabi of 2014, €4 billion invested by 2025 and the Kula tower of 168 m, the country's tallest; the IMF's Policy Coordination Instrument of 2024; the corruption the EU and the students count in the concrete of the canopy |
| Income classification | Upper-middle income (World Bank); "a functioning market economy" (European Commission, 2024) |
Transport & infrastructure
| Airports | Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport at Surčin, 18 km west of the city, the airport of 1962 named for Tesla in 2006, 8.9 million passengers in 2025, a record and 6.5% up, 89,480 flights, the hub of Air Serbia and the Wizz Air base, run since December 2018 by France's VINCI Airports on a 25-year concession of €730 million of investment toward 15 million passengers by 2043, the expanded terminal and the gates of 2026; Niš Constantine the Great, the low-cost airport of the south of some 400,000 to 500,000 a year; Morava at Lađevci near Kraljevo, opened to civil traffic in 2019; the Kraljevo, Vršac and Ponikve fields; Batajnica the air base; the Air Serbia flights to New York, Chicago, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin the country's long haul |
|---|---|
| Airline | Air Serbia — the flag carrier of the state, born as Aeroput on 17 June 1927 among the first airlines of Europe, JAT Yugoslav Airlines from 1947, Jat Airways of 2003 and Air Serbia since 26 October 2013 in the partnership of 2013 with Abu Dhabi's Etihad, the Airbus A330 of the New York route restored in 2016 after 24 years and of the Chinese routes, about 80 destinations, the ATRs and the A320s of the Balkans, the Belgrade hub of the region; the Wizz Air of the low fares; the JAT crash of 1972 whose stewardess Vesna Vulović survived a fall of 10,160 m, the record |
| Ports | None on the sea — the river ports of the Danube: Belgrade of the container terminal and the Sava, Novi Sad the largest of the bulk and the grain, Pančevo of the oil and the fertilizer, Smederevo of the steelworks' ore, Prahovo of the Timok and the Bulgarian trade, Bogojevo and Apatin of Bačka, Sremska Mitrovica on the Sava; the Đerdap I lock, the largest on the Danube; the Danube of the Rhine–Main–Danube corridor from Rotterdam to the Black Sea; the port of Bar in Montenegro of the railway and Thessaloniki of the road; the Danube cruises of Belgrade and the Iron Gates |
| Railways | About 3,740 km (2,320 mi) of standard gauge, about 1,280 km electrified, of the Serbian Railways Infrastructure and the Srbijavoz of the state; the 200 km/h line of Belgrade to Subotica of the Belgrade–Budapest railway of the Chinese and the Russian builders — the Belgrade–Novi Sad section of 75 km opened on 19 March 2022 by Vučić and Orbán, the first high-speed line of the Balkans, 36 minutes by the Stadler "Soko" trains, the Novi Sad–Subotica section of 108 km opened on 8 October 2025, Belgrade to Subotica in 79 minutes, the freight to Budapest running since 27 February 2026 and the through passenger service of three hours awaiting the Hungarian section's software fixes and approvals at 160 km/h in the autumn of 2026 by Budapest's word; the Belgrade Center station of Prokop of 2016 that replaced the main station of 1884 in 2018; the Belgrade–Bar railway of 1976 to the Adriatic, 476 km, 254 tunnels and the Mala Rijeka viaduct of 198 m, the world's highest railway bridge when built; the Belgrade–Niš line of 230 km under reconstruction for 200 km/h from the Stalać–Đunis section of 2026 on the Corridor X to Sofia and Skopje; the Šarganska Osmica of the narrow gauge of 1925 for the tourists; the BG Voz of the Belgrade commuters; the Novi Sad station of the canopy of 1 November 2024 |
| Roads | About 45,400 km (28,200 mi), about 29,300 paved; about 900 km of motorway in 2019 and about 1,000 by 2026 — the A1 of Corridor X from Horgoš on the Hungarian border through Novi Sad, Belgrade and Niš to Preševo on the Macedonian border, 590 km, the E75 of the Balkan route, completed in 2019 with the Grdelica gorge; the A3 of Belgrade to the Croatian border at Batrovci; the A4 of Niš to Dimitrovgrad and Sofia of 2019; the A2 "Miloš Veliki" of Belgrade to Čačak of 2019, extended toward Požega and Montenegro; the A5 "Moravian Corridor" of Pojate to Preljina of the Bechtel-Enka, opened in sections from 2023; the Vožd Karađorđe of Šumadija under construction; the "peace highway" of Niš to Pristina of the plans; the Belgrade bypass of the Ostružnica bridge; the tolls of the Putevi Srbije; the driving on the right, the 130 km/h limit; the road deaths of about 500 a year |
| Belgrade transport | The GSP of the buses, the trolleybuses of 1947 and the trams of 1892; the BG Voz; the Belgrade Metro — planned for a century and begun on 22 November 2021 at Makiš, the first line toward 2030 by the government's word, the "never" of the skeptics; the bridges of the Sava and the Danube — the Ada Bridge of 2012 of the 200-m pylon, the Pupin Bridge of 2014 the Chinese built, the Gazela, the Pančevo bridge, the Branko's bridge of 1956, the Nikola Tesla airport road of the Expo; the new Sava bridge and the Belgrade Waterfront quay; the "Belgrade on Water" of the Kula |
| Pipelines and grids | The Balkan Stream, the Serbian branch of Russia's TurkStream through Bulgaria, in service from 1 January 2021, 403 km from Zaječar to the Hungarian border, the gas of the country's heating and the Pančevo plant; the Bulgarian interconnector of Niš to Dimitrovgrad of 10 December 2023 for the Azerbaijani and the LNG gas, the first alternative to Gazprom; the JANAF Adria oil pipeline from Omišalj in Croatia to Pančevo of 1979, cut by the sanctions of 2025; the Banatski Dvor gas storage; the 400-kV lines to every neighbor and the Trans-Balkan corridor of the EU's plans; the water of the Belgrade Makiš plant and the sewage of the capital that still runs into the Danube and the Sava untreated, the Veliko Selo plant of the plans |
| The country | The Đerdap and the Golubac of the Danube; the Fruška Gora monasteries; the Petrovaradin fortress of Novi Sad; the Studenica and the Sopoćani; the Tara canyon of the Drina and the house on the rock; the Uvac meanders; the Đavolja Varoš; the Resava cave; the Kopaonik and the Zlatibor; the Guča and the EXIT; the Niš Skull Tower and the Mediana; the Felix Romuliana; the Subotica synagogue; the Oplenac church of the Karađorđević; the Belgrade fortress at sunset |
History in dates
| c. 7000 BC | Lepenski Vir on the Danube — the sculptures |
|---|---|
| c. 5700 BC | The Vinča culture of the Belgrade suburb |
| 279 BC | Singidunum of the Celts |
| 272 | Constantine the Great born at Naissus (Niš), 27 February |
| c. 610–640 | The Serbs settle the Balkans under Heraclius |
| c. 780 | The first Serbian principality of the Vlastimirović |
| 1166 | Stefan Nemanja, grand prince of Raška |
| 1217 | Stefan the First-Crowned king — the Kingdom of Serbia |
| 1219 | The autocephalous church of Saint Sava |
| 1346 | Dušan crowned emperor at Skopje, 16 April |
| 1389 | The Battle of Kosovo, 28 June (15 June O.S.) — Vidovdan |
| 1459 | Smederevo falls — the Ottoman conquest |
| 1521 | Belgrade falls to Suleiman, 28 August |
| 1690 | The Great Migration under Patriarch Arsenije III |
| 1804 | The First Serbian Uprising at Orašac, February — Karađorđe |
| 1815 | The Second Uprising, Takovo, 23 April — Miloš Obrenović |
| 1830 | Autonomy — the Sultan's hatt-i sharif |
| 1835 | The Sretenje Constitution, February |
| 1867 | The Ottoman garrisons leave Belgrade, 18 April |
| 1878 | Independence at the Congress of Berlin, 13 July |
| 1882 | The Kingdom of Serbia, 6 March — King Milan |
| 1903 | The May Coup — the Karađorđević restored, 11 June |
| 1912–13 | The Balkan Wars — Kosovo and Macedonia won |
| 1914 | Sarajevo, 28 June; Austria-Hungary's war, 28 July; Cer and Kolubara |
| 1915 | The retreat over Albania — the Salonika front |
| 1918 | The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, 1 December |
| 1929 | Yugoslavia, 3 October |
| 1941 | Belgrade bombed, 6 April; the Republic of Užice, autumn |
| 1944 | Belgrade liberated, 20 October |
| 1945 | The federal republic, 29 November — Tito |
| 1948 | The Tito–Stalin split |
| 1980 | Tito dies, 4 May |
| 1989 | Milošević at Gazimestan, 28 June |
| 1992 | The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 27 April; the sanctions; the wars |
| 1993 | The hyperinflation — the 500-billion note |
| 1995 | Dayton, 21 November |
| 1999 | NATO bombs Serbia, 24 March – 10 June; resolution 1244 |
| 2000 | Milošević falls, 5 October; the UN, 1 November |
| 2003 | Đinđić assassinated, 12 March; Serbia and Montenegro, 4 February |
| 2006 | Independence, 5 June; the Constitution, 8 November |
| 2008 | Kosovo's declaration, 17 February; NIS sold to Gazprom |
| 2012 | EU candidate, 1 March; the SNS takes power |
| 2013 | The Brussels Agreement, 19 April |
| 2014 | EU talks open, 21 January; the floods of May |
| 2017 | Vučić president, 31 May |
| 2022 | The judiciary referendum, 16 January; the 200 km/h railway, 19 March; Vučić re-elected, 3 April |
| 2023 | The Ohrid agreement, 18 March; the Ribnikar shooting, 3 May; Expo 2027 won, 21 June; Banjska, 24 September; the election, 17 December |
| 2024 | The Rafale contract, 29 August; the Novi Sad canopy, 1 November — 16 dead |
| 2025 | Vučević resigns, 28 January; the 325,000 of 15 March; Macut, 16 April; the sanctions on NIS, 8 October; the Subotica railway, 8 October; Jadar mothballed, 13 November |
| 2026 | The MOL deal, 19 January; the "Mrdić laws," 28 January; Vučić's "last weeks," 27 June; Cluster 3 blocked, 8 July; Mladić dies, 27 August, buried, 7 September; the election called, 9 September; the resignation announced for 27 September; the election due 25 October |
Records & firsts
| The most Grand Slam titles of the men's game | Djokovic, 24 |
|---|---|
| The three water polo golds in a row | 2016, 2020, 2024 |
| The largest gorge of Europe | The Đerdap, the Iron Gates |
| Among Europe's oldest settled cultures | Vinča, c. 5700 BC |
| The most Roman emperors born | Some 17, Constantine first |
| The longest fall survived | Vesna Vulović, 10,160 m, 1972 |
| The first high-speed railway of the Balkans | Belgrade–Novi Sad, 2022 |
| The world's second plum producer | About 580,000 tons |
| The world's third raspberry producer | About 127,000 tons |
| One of Europe's first civil codes | 1844 |
| The living-fossil spruce | Picea omorika, 1875 |
| The 202 earth pyramids | Đavolja Varoš |
| The city razed 44 times | Belgrade |
| The only slava | UNESCO, 2014 |
| The Nobel of 1961 | Ivo Andrić |
| The first three-time MVP of Europe | Jokić |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of Serbia?
The Republic of Serbia — Republika Srbija, Република Србија in the Cyrillic the Constitution names first — the name of the Constitution of 8 November 2006 that followed the end of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro on 5 June 2006, when Montenegro's referendum of 21 May 2006 left Serbia the successor state of the union and of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of 1992. Before it came the Socialist Republic of Serbia of 1945 to 1992 inside Tito's Yugoslavia, the Kingdom of Serbia of 1882 to 1918 that merged into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the Principality of 1815 and 1830 that won its autonomy from the Ottomans, the medieval kingdom of 1217 and empire of 1346 of the Nemanjić house, and the principalities of the seventh century. The name is the name of the people, the Serbs (Srbi), recorded by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII in the tenth century, of an origin the scholars still argue.
What is the capital of Serbia?
Belgrade — Beograd, "the white city," at the meeting of the Sava and the Danube, the Celtic Singidunum of 279 BC on the Vinča settlement of the sixth millennium BC, the Roman legionary town, the Ottoman and the Habsburg fortress fought over in 115 wars and razed 44 times by the city's own count, the capital of the Principality of Serbia from 1841 and of every Yugoslavia from 1918 to 2006 — about 1.68 million people in the City of Belgrade of the 17 municipalities at the census of 2022 and 1.2 million in the city proper, a quarter of the country, the seat of the president, the government, the National Assembly and the Serbian Orthodox patriarch, of the Belgrade Fortress of Kalemegdan, the Church of Saint Sava, the Belgrade Waterfront towers and the Expo 2027 site at Surčin. Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina, Niš of Constantine's birth and Kragujevac of the cars follow.
How big is Serbia, and how many people live there?
88,499 km² (34,170 sq mi) by the Constitution and the Statistical Office, which count Kosovo and Metohija as a province, and 77,589 km² (29,957 sq mi) without Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008 and which Belgrade does not recognize — the second figure about the size of the Czech Republic or of South Carolina, a landlocked country of the Pannonian Plain in the north and the Balkan mountains in the south, bordered by Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. The census of October 2022 counted 6,647,003 people without Kosovo, down from 7.2 million in 2011 and 7.8 million in 1991, and the Statistical Office's estimate for 2025 is 6,549,901 — the population falling about half a percent a year on a fertility rate of 1.6, a death rate half again the birth rate and the emigration of the young, one of the fastest declines in Europe; Serbs 80.6 percent, Hungarians 2.7, Bosniaks 2.3 and Roma 2 percent of the census, four in five Orthodox.
What are the highest and lowest points of Serbia?
Midžor, 2,169 m (7,116 ft), on the Bulgarian border in the Stara Planina, the Balkan Mountains of the east, the highest point of Serbia outside Kosovo; Đeravica in the Prokletije, 2,656 m (8,714 ft), the highest point of the territory the Constitution claims, stands in Kosovo. The lowest point is the Danube where it leaves the country at the Timok's mouth near Prahovo, about 35 m (115 ft) above the sea. Between them lie the plain of Vojvodina at 80 m, the hills of Šumadija, the Kopaonik of the ski runs at 2,017 m, the Tara and the Zlatibor of the west, and the Đerdap, the Iron Gates, where the Danube cuts the largest gorge in Europe between the Carpathians and the Balkans over 100 km, 150 m wide at the Kazan narrows and up to 90 m deep, the Đerdap I dam of 1972 damming it into the country's largest lake.
What currency does Serbia use?
The Serbian dinar (ISO code RSD, дин.), of 100 para, issued by the National Bank of Serbia, the dinar of 1868 restored in 2003 after the Yugoslav dinar and the hyperinflation of 1993 that the notes of 500 billion dinars recall; the bank keeps it near 117 to the euro in a managed float since 2017, the notes of 10 to 5,000 dinars carrying Vuk Karadžić, Nikola Tesla, Milutin Milanković and Slobodan Jovanović, and the euro is the currency of the savings, the flats and the car prices in the shops' minds. Clocks keep Central European Time, UTC+1, and summer time from March to October; Serbia drives on the right and plugs into 230 volts.
Who governs Serbia?
A parliamentary republic under the Constitution of 2006, whose president is directly elected for five years and whose government answers to the National Assembly of 250. On 26 September 2026 the president is Aleksandar Vučić of the Serbian Progressive Party, in office since 31 May 2017 and re-elected on 3 April 2022, who has announced that he will resign on 27 September 2026 to lead his party's "United Serbia" list as its candidate for prime minister in the snap parliamentary election of 25 October 2026 he called by decree on 9 September, dissolving the Assembly; once his resignation reaches the Assembly, its speaker, Ana Brnabić, the prime minister of 2017 to 2024, becomes acting president for up to three months, within which a presidential election must be held. The prime minister since 16 April 2025 is Đuro Macut, an endocrinologist and professor without a party, chosen after Miloš Vučević resigned in January 2025 in the protests that followed the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy of 1 November 2024 that killed 16 people. The protesters and the opposition — the Student List of Dr. Ilija Srdanović, the Platform for a European Serbia, the National Democratic Alternative and others — call the vote a referendum on Vučić's rule, the corruption they blame for the canopy and the media they say he controls; the government calls it proof of "the unbreakable will of a democratic Serbia," in Macut's words.
Explore all general-knowledge topics and the A-to-Z lists.
We Value Your Opinion Comments