Discover Serbia : Geography

Serbia and its borders

Serbia is bounded to the north by its border with Hungary, to the east by its borders with Romania and Bulgaria, to the south with Northern Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania, and finally to the west with Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Serbia has eight neighbors, nine if you count its border with Kosovo. The European Union has a significant presence in Serbia, the country is a candidate for membership since 2009 and is part of many cooperation and neighborhood programs. Among its neighbors, there are many new members such as Croatia, which joined the Union in 2013, Hungary in 2004, Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. In sum, for a decade, almost two thirds of Serbia's borders are bordering the EU. In the Serbian ensemble, Belgrade occupies an eccentric position in the north, at the entrance to the Pannonian plain composed of the great plains of the Bačka, which extend into Hungary, and those of the Banat, which border on Romania. To the south are also the river valleys of the Morava. The rest of the Serbian territory is a mountainous territory, very uneven and pierced by rare river axes and valleys. The country includes three large mountainous areas, mainly the Dinaric Alps in the southwest, the Rhodope massif on the Bulgarian border and part of the Balkan Carpathian chain on its eastern flank. Finally, the western and eastern massifs, of different geological formations, cut by the Morava plain and the large Hungarian plain in the north, give Serbia a great variety of landscapes.

Mountains and peaks of Serbia

The presence of the Dinaric Alps explains the numerous high peaks in Serbia, fifteen of which exceed 2,000 m in altitude. From these impressive peaks, mountainous massifs interspersed with forests and alpine pastures develop towards the east, called the Stara Planina. This region of alpine pastures interspersed with lakes and rivers is the heart of the country's habitat and high life. Finally, when we add on the map the numerous mountain systems culminating between 1 500 and 1 900 m, we obtain a real interlacing of chains girdling the country in a kind of upside down horseshoe.

Of these imposing mountains we will remember :

in the Prokletije massif in Kosovo, the four peaks of Djeravica (the highest mountain, which culminates at 2,656 m), Gusam (at 2,539 m), Bogdas (at 2,533 m) and Žuti Kamen (at 2,522 m) ;

in the Šar Planina massif in Kosovo, the two peaks above 2,400 m are Crni Vrh (2,585 m) and Ljubošten (2,498 m);

in the Stara Planina massif in the east, there is the Midžor peak at 2,168 m, near the town of Pirot;

finally, in the Suva Planina massif in the south, near Niš, there is the Trem peak at 1,809 m.

In addition, the Sandžak region in the west and eastern Serbia in general is a karst region, especially the Dinaric Karst, which is composed of limestone rocks that give it a rugged appearance, perfect for hiking and photography. Their massifs conceal numerous canyons and formidable networks of natural caves.

Hydrography and communication axes

In this very rugged territory, the main natural routes dug by the rivers are major communication channels, used for thousands of years.

First of all, there are the Sava and Danube rivers that cross the territory from east to west. The Danube crosses Serbia from north to east, for 588 km and since the opening of the Rhine-Main-Danube axis in 1992, a traffic of large-scale river carriers has developed from Rotterdam to the Black Sea. The Serbian section has become more important since the purchase and investment of the Smederevo inland port (east of Belgrade) by an Austrian group in 2002. To strengthen this major communication axis to the Danube, the rivers Sava and Tisza have also been developed over approximately 200 km, in addition to a network of canals developed over 600 km. The other important river axis is the Morava River, which connects the Danube to the Black Sea basin. It has always organized the communication between the south and the north of Serbia up to Northern Macedonia (not to be confused with the other tributary of the Danube also named Morava in Czechia). The Morava drains all the waterways of western Serbia and flows through the main Choumadian cities of Užice, Čačak and Kraljevose before dividing into the Southern Morava, which notably connects Niš, the third largest city in the country, to the capital, and the Western Morava, which notably waters the city of Kruševac. Finally, the valley of the Ibar, also a tributary of the Morava, connects the plains of eastern Serbia to the region of Kosovo and its capital Pristina. In addition to these natural networks, there are man-made routes: Belgrade is a famous intersection of two of the routes of the Orient Express, between the directions of Sofia and Skopje from Central Europe, in addition to the Pan-European corridors of the EU No. 7 and No. 10, which also cross the country to irrigate the entire region, through Belgrade.

Water, though abundant, is a fragile resource. The mountain networks are very susceptible to pollution and overexploitation and the many mineral water sources exploited are carefully monitored. The complexity of the hydrological basins also makes water management difficult. Nevertheless, the country's immense hydrological potential is being exploited, as evidenced by the numerous canals that cross Vojvodina, Serbia's granary, and the two large dams on the Danube (the Iron Gates dam, inaugurated in 1972 on the Romanian border, is among the largest in Europe).

Political geography of Serbia

The Republic of Serbia consists of provinces (pokrajine), five statistical regions (regioni), twenty-nine administrative districts (upravni oblasti), the city of Belgrade (Grad Beograd), towns (gradovi) and municipalities (opštine

). The country has two autonomous provinces: in the north, Vojvodina, which has been an ethnically diverse region since 1945, comprising almost a quarter of the territory and is the agricultural heartland, and in the southeast, Kosovo, populated by Albanians, which has been autonomous since 1999 under the auspices of the United Nations. These autonomous regions have their own governments and parliaments, their own cultural and educational policies, and autonomous management of their infrastructure. Kosovo is a very special case.

Kosovo, autonomous region or independent country?

Since 1999, the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) during the civil war has had as one of its missions to make the province an autonomous province. Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence on February 17, 2008 by a vote of its parliament. After 2008, UNMIK was accompanied by EULEX, an EU mission to establish the rule of law in the region. Since then, there has been friction within Kosovo between these international missions and the local government, while the Serbian government still does not recognize the right of Kosovars to independence. The two actors engage in frequent legal and economic arms games, but there has been no military escalation so far. What is certain is that the life of border residents is much more complicated than before. In March 2020, of the 193 sovereign members of the United Nations, only 92 recognize Kosovo's independence. The region is still part of FIFA and the IOC, so they can participate in international competitions.