Serbia
Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe. It is bordered by Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia to the northwest, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, Montenegro to the southwest, and it also claims a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo.
Serbia has about 6.5 million inhabitants, with its capital, Belgrade, being its largest city.
Continuously inhabited since the Paleolithic age, the territory of modern-day Serbia, then part of the Roman Empire, experienced Slavic migrations in the 6th century. The first Serb proto-state was established in the 7th century and by the 9th century had developed into a more stable principality, recognized as tributary state to the Byzantine Empire. The Serbian Kingdom was established in 1217, reaching its territorial apex in 1346 as the Serbian Empire. By the mid-16th century, the Ottoman Empire annexed the entirety of modern-day Serbia; their rule was at times interrupted by the Habsburg Empire, which maintained a foothold in the northern part of the country from the early 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the Principality of Serbia, which developed into a constitutional monarchy and gained international recognition of its independence in 1878 before being proclaimed a kingdom in 1882. Emerging victorious from World War I, Serbia incorporated the former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina into its territory in 1918, before uniting that same year with Slovenes and Croats to form the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, ending its existence as a separate political entity. Serbia was re-established after World War II as one of six federal units of socialist Yugoslavia. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, it formed a union with Montenegro, which was dissolved in 2006, subsequently restoring Serbia's independence. In 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, receiving mixed responses from the international community, while Serbia continues to regard it as part of its sovereign territory.
Serbia is a parliamentary republic, with its constitution ensuring the separation of powers between the executive (with president and government headed by the prime minister), legislative (with unicameral parliament), and judiciary branches. The country is a member of the United Nations and numerous other international organizations and has been negotiating its accession to the European Union. It exerts regional influence as a small power in Europe, particularly in neighboring Southeast Europe. An upper-middle-income economy, Serbia provides universal health care as well as free primary and secondary education and subsidized tertiary education to its citizens.
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