Serbia

The name Serbia derives from the ethnonym Serb. The origin of the ethnonym Serb itself is unclear. There exist two prevailing theories about the origin of the ethnonym *Sŕbъ (plur. *Sŕby), one from a Proto-Slavic language with an appellative meaning of a "family kinship" and "alliance", while the other is from an Iranian-Sarmatian language with various meanings.

The earliest mention of the Serbs are from 7th-century Chronicle of Fredegar, which describes Dervan as "the duke of the Serb people, who are of Slavic descent" (Latin: Dervanus dux gente Surbiorum, que ex genere Sclavinorum erant), and Einhard's Royal Frankish Annals, written in the 8th and 9th centuries, which mention "the Serbs, a people that is said to hold a large part of Dalmatia" (ad Sorabos, quae natio magnam Dalmatiae partem obtinere dicitur). Authors in the early Middle Ages referred to the Serbs and the lands they inhabited in a variety of ways: gentis (S)urbiorum, Suurbi, Soraborum, Sorabi, Sorabos, Sorabici, Sorabiet, Sorbi, Servetiis, Surpe, Sarbin, Swrbjn, Servians, Sirbia, Sribia, Zirbia, Zribia, Suurbelant, Surbia, Serbulia, Sorbulia, among others.

In the medieval period, Serbia was known as the Serbian Kingdom from 1217 to 1346, followed by the Serbian Empire from 1346 to 1371, and finally the Serbian Despotate from 1402 to 1459. In the modern period, the official name of the country was the Principality of Serbia from 1815 to 1882, followed by the Kingdom of Serbia from 1882 to 1918. In the contemporary period, the official name was the People's Republic of Serbia from 1945 to 1963, the Socialist Republic of Serbia from 1963 to 1990, and, since 1990, the Republic of Serbia.

=== Prehistory and antiquity ===

Archaeological evidence of Paleolithic settlements on the territory of present-day Serbia is scarce. A fragment of a hominid jaw found in Mala Balanica Cave is believed to be up to 525,000 years old.

Around 6500 BC, during the Neolithic, the Starčevo and Vinča cultures were present in the region of modern-day Belgrade. They were widespread across much of Southeast Europe as well as parts of Central Europe and Anatolia. Several important archaeological sites from this era, including Lepenski Vir and Vinča-Belo Brdo, exist along the banks of the Danube.

During the Iron Age, the Greeks encountered local tribes of Triballi, Dardani, and Autariatae as they expanded culturally and politically into the region from the 5th to the 2nd century BC. The Celtic tribe of Scordisci settled throughout the area in the 3rd century BC. They established a tribal state and built several fortified settlements, including Singidunum (present-day Belgrade) and Naissos (present-day Niš).

The Romans conquered much of the territory in the 2nd century BC. In 167 BC, the Roman province of Illyricum was established, covering modern-day western Serbia. The territory of eastern and southern Serbia was conquered around 75 BC, forming the Roman province of Moesia Superior; the modern-day Syrmia region was conquered in 9 BC, while Bačka and Banat in 106 AD after the Dacian Wars. Some historians believe 18 Roman emperors were born in the territory of modern-day Serbia, the second-highest number of any modern country after Italy. The most famous of these was Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor, who issued an edict ordering religious tolerance throughout the Empire. When the Roman Empire was divided in 395, most of present-day Serbia became part of the Byzantine Empire.

By the 6th century, early Slavs migrated into the Byzantine territory in large numbers merging with the local romanised population that was gradually assimilated. White Serbs, an early Slavic tribe eventually settled in an area between the Sava river and the Dinaric Alps. The first Serbian proto-state was established in the 7th century and was based largely on tribal and kinship structures, but by the beginning of the 9th century it had developed into a more stable principality with more centralized institutions, while remaining a Byzantine vassal state throughout. It was completely conquered and annexed by the Byzantine Empire in the late 10th century and ceased to exist as an independent polity for almost a century.

At the end of the 11th century, Serbia re-emerged as the grand principality, which was consolidated under Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the Nemanjić dynasty. Under the Nemanjić dynasty, Serbia gradually expanded its territory, emerging from a regional principality into one of the major powers in the Southeastern Europe. Its territorial growth culminated in the 13th and 14th centuries, when Serbia became a kingdom (in 1217) and later an empire (in 1346), extending its rule over large parts of the Balkans.

Following the fall of the Serbian Empire in 1371, the Serbian lands fragmented among several regional rulers as the Ottoman Empire expanded into the Balkans. The Battle of Kosovo in 1389, fought between Serbian forces and the Ottomans, was one of the most consequential events in Serbian history and became a central element of national mythology. The battle resulted in the establishment of Ottoman suzerainty over the Serbian lands, although Serbian statehood was subsequently revived in the form of the despotate. Caught between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, Serbian Despotate alternated between Ottoman and Hungarian vassalage as political circumstances changed, until the fall of its capital, Smederevo, to the Ottomans in 1459 marked the end of the independent medieval Serbian state.

In all Serb lands conquered by the Ottomans, the native nobility was eliminated and the peasantry was enserfed to Ottoman nobles, including aghas and beys, while much of the clergy retreated to isolated monasteries. Under the Ottoman millet system, Christians were classified as rayah and subjected to heavy taxation, while a portion of the Serbian population underwent islamisation. The Patriarchate of Peć was abolished in 1463 and restored in 1557, allowing for the limited continuation of Serbian cultural traditions within the Ottoman Empire.

After the loss of statehood to the Ottoman Empire, Serbian resistance continued in the northern regions. From 1521 to 1552, the Ottomans conquered conquered Belgrade and the regions of Syrmia, Bačka, and Banat. Wars and rebellions repeatedly challenged Ottoman rule, most notably the Banat Uprising of 1594–1595, which was part of the Long Turkish War between the Habsburg Empire and the Ottomans. The regions of Syrmia, Bačka, and Banat remained under Ottoman rule for about a century before being ceded to the Habsburgs, partially under the Treaty of Karlovci of 1699 and completely under the Treaty of Požarevac of 1718.

During the Great Turkish War, large parts of central and southern Serbia briefly came under Habsburg control. However, the Ottomans eventually reconquered the territory in 1689–1690, amid widespread violence and persecution of the civilian population. As a result, tens of thousands of Serbs fled northwards to settle north of the Danube and Sava rivers towards present-day Vojvodina, Slavonia and Military Frontier in a series migrations known as the Great Migrations of the Serbs. The Habsburg Empire granted the settled Serbs a set of privileges, primarily guaranteeing them freedom of religion. As a consequence, the ecclesiastical centre of the Serbs also moved northwards to Karlovci with the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Karlovci, and the Patriarchate of Peć was once again abolished by the Ottomans in 1766. The Habsburgs occupied much of central Serbia from 1718 to 1739, establishing Serbia as a Habsburg crownland, before losing the territory under the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, when the Ottomans retook the region.

The Serbian Revolution was a series of events spanning three decades, from 1804 to 1835, that resulted in the re-emergence of the Serbian state after centuries of Ottoman rule. The first part of the period, from 1804 to 1817, was marked by two armed uprisings. During the First Serbian Uprising, led by Karađorđe Petrović, insurrectionists established de facto independence for almost a decade before the Ottomans regained control of the territory. The Second Serbian Uprising began in 1815 under the leadership of Miloš Obrenović and eventually ended with a compromise that recognized Ottoman sovereignty while granting limited autonomy to the nascent Principality of Serbia. The later period saw the peaceful consolidation of Serbia's autonomy, culminating in the recognition of hereditary rule for the Serbian princes in 1830 and 1833 and the adoption of the first constitution in 1835 which formally prohibited serfdom, thus making Serbia the first nation in the Eastern Europe to abolish feudalism.

The last Ottoman garrisons left in 1867, while a new constitution was enacted in 1869 without consulting the Ottoman government; taken together, these developments marked Serbia's de facto independence. In 1876, Serbia went to subsequent wars with the Ottoman Empire, siding with the ongoing Herzegovina uprising, a revolt of ethnic Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina against Ottoman rule. The wars were militarily inconclusive and ended with the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which formally recognized Serbia's independence. The provisions of the treaty granted Serbia relatively modest territorial gains, while preventing the unification of Bosnia and Herzegovina with Serbia by placing the region under Austro-Hungarian administration while retaining nominal Ottoman sovereignty. Shortly after international recognition of its independence, in 1882, Serbia was proclaimed a kingdom under the rule of the House of Obrenović, which had ruled the principality for most of its existence. The rival House of Karađorđević, descendants of the revolutionary leader Karađorđe Petrović, assumed power in 1903 following the May Coup.

Serbia together with Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria formed the Balkan League and went to war with the Ottoman Empire in 1912–13 in what became known as the First Balkan War. They defeated the Ottomans and captured most of its European territories, enabling Serbia to expand into the regions of Raška, Kosovo, and Vardar Macedonia. The Second Balkan War soon followed when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with the division of Macedonia, attacked its former allies Serbia and Greece but was defeated. Within two years, Serbia had enlarged its territory by 80% and its population by 50%.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, in an act intended to end Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The assassination ultimately led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and the outbreak of World War I. The Serbian Army repelled two Austro-Hungarian invasion attempts in 1914, with the Austro-Hungarian Army's defeat described as one of the great upsets in modern military history. The third campaign was launched almost a year later under German command, when German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces invaded Serbia from three sides, occupying and dividing the country into two zones of occupation: an Austro-Hungarian zone west of the Great Morava and a Bulgarian zone to the east. Serbia, however, refused to capitulate, and the Serbian Army and state apparatus instead undertook the Great Retreat through Montenegro and Albania to the island of Corfu in Greece, suffering immense losses along the way. After recuperating there for several months, the Serbian Army was deployed in the summer of 1916 to the Macedonian Front and joined the Allied Army of the Orient. Alongside French, British, and Greek forces, it fought a two-year trench war against Bulgarian and German forces. In September 1918, Allied forces, spearheaded by Serbian troops, broke through the German and Bulgarian defenses, forcing Bulgaria to withdraw from the war and German troops to fall back, resulting in the liberation of Serbia. The country suffered the highest casualty rate in World War I, accounting for 8% of total Allied military deaths, while approximately 58% of the Serbian military perished during the war. The total number of Serbian fatalities has been estimated at around 700,000, representing more than 16% of Serbia's prewar population.

During the war, Serbia declared the unification of the South Slavs into a common South Slavic, "Yugoslav", state as one of its war aims and negotiated the Corfu Declaration with the Yugoslav Committee, an ad hoc group representing the interests of South Slavs living in Austria-Hungary, which outlined the principles for establishing the future state.

The creation of Yugoslavia was preceded by a series of proclamations of unification with Serbia as the Austro-Hungary collapsed in the late 1918. First, Syrmia united with Serbia, followed by the declaration of the Great National Assembly in Novi Sad unifying Banat, Bačka and Baranya with Serbia. Finally, the Podgorica Assembly deposed the Montenegrin ruling house of Petrović-Njegoš and declared the unification of Montenegro with Serbia.

On 1 December 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was proclaimed in Belgrade under the rule of the House of Karađorđević and, two years later, constitutionally established as a unitary state. Serb unitarists and Croat autonomists clashed in parliament, while most governments were fragile and short-lived. In 1929, King Alexander I established a dictatorship aimed at creating a single Yugoslav nation and changed the country's name to Yugoslavia, but the dictatorship ultimately further alienated its non-Serb population from the idea of Yugoslav unity. King Alexander I was assassinated in 1934, after which the policy of integral Yugoslavism was gradually abandoned in favor of a compromise between Serbs and Croats, culminating in the Cvetković–Maček Agreement of 1939, which established the autonomous Banovina of Croatia in response to Croatian demands for greater autonomy.

Under pressure from Nazi Germany and following failed attempts to maintain neutrality, Yugoslavia acceded to the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941. The following day, mass protests broke out in Belgrade against the accession. Two days after the agreement had been signed, the Yugoslav government was overthrown in a military coup. In response to the coup, the Axis invaded Yugoslavia and swiftly conquered it.

Most of the territory of modern-day Serbia was placed under German military administration as the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. The remainder was divided between Hungary (Bačka), Bulgaria (southeastern Serbia), and Italy (Raška), as well as the Axis-puppet states of the Independent State of Croatia (Syrmia) and Albania (Kosovo). Appointed by the German Military Commander in Serbia, the collaborationist Government of National Salvation, led by General Milan Nedić, was responsible for domestic administration under German supervision.

The uprising in Serbia began in the summer of 1941, with two resistance movements emerging: the communist-led Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito, and the royalist Chetniks, loyal to the government-in-exile and led by Colonel Draža Mihailović. The Partisans established the Republic of Užice, a short-lived military mini-state in western Serbia that constituted the largest liberated territory in German-occupied Europe at the time. The Germans responded in the autumn of 1941 with a series of mass reprisals against the civilian population, including the Kragujevac massacre, in which 2,794 people were killed; the Kraljevo massacre, with around 2,000 civilian victims; and the Draginac massacre (sr), in which 2,677 people were killed. Those actions led to the passivization of the Chetnik resistance in Serbia, while the Užice Republic was overrun by the German forces, forcing the majority of the Partisans to withdraw to the territories of the present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia; the remaining Partisans confined their activities to small-scale attacks and sabotage.

Meanwhile, around 16,000 Jews were murdered, representing around 90% of the pre-war Jewish population. At the same time, tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs fled the Independent State of Croatia and sought refuge in German-occupied Serbia to escape the large-scale persecution and genocide perpetrated by the Ustaše regime. The number of ethnic Serb victims of the Ustaše regime has been estimated between 300,000 and 350,000.

After the tumultuous first year of the war, Serbia remained relatively calm until the autumn of 1944, when Soviet forces advanced into the Balkans from Romania. By late 1944, most of Serbia had been liberated in the Belgrade Offensive by the Soviet Red Army, supported by the Bulgarian Army and the Yugoslav Partisans. The offensive decisively shifted the balance in favour of the Partisans, who afterwards gained control of Yugoslavia. Serbia suffered heavy losses in World War II, although on a smaller scale than during World War I, with total war-related deaths estimated at 273,000.

The liberation of Yugoslavia and victory of the Communist Partisans resulted in the abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of the republic. A one-party state was established under the rule of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, led by Josip Broz Tito, who ruled the country from 1944 until his death in 1980, first as prime minister and later as the president.

After ceasing to exist as a distinct political entity in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Serbia was re-established as one of the six constituent republics of the Yugoslav federation, known as the People's Republic of Serbia. Within Serbia two autonomous provinces were created, Kosovo and Vojvodina. In addition to the three constituent peoples of the monarchical era - Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes - the federal structure provided for the recognition of three new constituent peoples: Macedonians and Montenegrins in the late 1940s, and "Muslims" (predecessor to the modern Bosniak ethnicity) in the late 1960s. Each was associated with a respective constituent republic: Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In foreign policy, the socialist Yugoslavia sided with the Eastern Bloc at the beginning of the Cold War but pursued a policy of non-alignment following Tito–Stalin split in 1948.

Domestically, two underlying tendencies prevailed throughout this period: centralization, which was dominant until the 1960s and generally supported by Serbia, and decentralization, advocated by Slovenia and Croatia, which gained prominence from the late 1960s and led to the adoption of the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution. The constitution strengthened the constituent republics and weakened the federal center, transforming country into a loose federation. It introduced extensive powers for the provinces, which acquired a status comparable to that of the republics while remaining constitutionally part of Serbia. In 1981, violent protests erupted in Kosovo, with Kosovo Albanians demanding that the province be granted the status of a constituent republic. This further intensified tensions over the constitutional position of Serbia, whose leadership had already criticized the 1974 Constitution for weakening the republic's authority over its autonomous provinces and called for its revision.

In 1989, Slobodan Milošević rose to power in Serbia, promising to reduce the powers of the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina and to reform the ineffective system of consensus at the federal level, epitomized by the collective federal presidency established after Tito's death. A series of protests known as the Anti-bureaucratic revolution led to Milošević's allies coming to power in the provinces and Montenegro. This effectively gave Milošević and the Serbian leadership control over four of the eight members of the federal presidency, heightening tensions with the communist leaderships of the other republics, which feared renewed centralization. Serbia adopted a new constitution in 1990, which abolished the provinces' autonomy in all but name. In response, Kosovo Albanians, who constituted an overwhelming majority of the population of Kosovo, declared the Republic of Kosova, an unrecognized quasi-state, although Serbia retained full control and jurisdiction over the territory.

In parallel with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia disintegrated in early 1990, leading to the dismantling of the one-party system, with the first multiparty elections held at the level of the individual republics rather than at the federal level later that year. In Serbia, the republican branche of the Communist Party, reconstituted as the Socialist Party of Serbia won the first multiparty elections and remained in power throughout the 1990s. In all the other republics, with the exception of Montenegro, nationalist parties advocating independence won decisive victories and formed new non-communist leaderships that sought independence for their respective republics.

Yugoslavia subsequently broke up, with Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia declaring independence in 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina following suit in 1992, while Serbia and Montenegro remained together as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, later renamed the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. The Yugoslav Wars erupted, with the most severe conflicts taking place in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the large ethnic Serb communities opposed independence from Yugoslavia. Although avoiding direct full-scale involvement, Serbia supported the Serbs in Croatia by providing supplies and volunteers, while serving as a mobilization base for the Yugoslav Army and a rear base for its military operations in eastern Croatia. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia's involvement was more limited, although it provided logistical, military, and financial support to Bosnian Serb forces.

In response to their involvement in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, the UN imposed sanctions unprecedented in scale against Serbia and Montenegro in 1992, which isolated the country by banning international trade, air and sea travel, shipments to and from the country, scientific and technical cooperation, cultural exchanges, and the participation of sporting teams in international competitions. The sanctions had devastating effects on the economy, leading to its rapid collapse: GDP more than halved in just one year, while hyperinflation reached the highest rate ever recorded worldwide. Most of the sanctions were lifted in 1996 following the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which ended the conflict in Bosnia.

The situation in Kosovo remained relatively calm throughout much of the decade, until continued clashes between the Albanian guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army and Serbian security forces escalated into the Kosovo War, during which NATO intervened and conducted a 78-day aerial campaign that, in addition to targeting military sites and installations, caused extensive damage to country's transport and energy infrastructure. It led to the withdrawal of the Serbian state institutions from the province and the establishment of a UN interim administration, accompanied by the displacement of much of the Kosovo Serb population.

The overthrow of Slobodan Milošević in 2000 ended Serbia and Montenegro's international isolation. The country embarked on a course of democratization and economic reforms accompanied by a strong economic growth. The political climate, however, remained tense as it dealt with the legacy of the 1990s, including the proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, to which much of Serbia's political and military leadership was extradited and prosecuted, including Milošević. The reformist prime minister Zoran Đinđić was assassinated in 2003 as result of a plot originating from organised crime and former security officials.

The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro was dissolved in 2006 following a referendum in Montenegro, in which 55% voted in favor of independence, resulting in the restoration of Serbia as an independent state. In 2008, Kosovo declared independence, ending the UN interim administration. Serbia opposed the move, considering it illegal and illegitimate, and continues to regard Kosovo as its province while pursuing a sustained diplomatic policy aimed at limiting Kosovo's international recognition and participation in international organizations.

In 2012, Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party came to power. Since then, Serbia has suffered from democratic backsliding into authoritarianism, followed by a decline in media freedom and civil liberties.

In recent years, Serbia experienced a series of mass nationwide protests, including the environmental protests in 2021 and 2022 against proposed lithium mine in western Serbia, the "Serbia Against Violence" protests in 2023 in response to the Belgrade school shooting and the Mladenovac and Smederevo mass shootings, and the anti-corruption protests following the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse in 2024.

Serbia is situated on the Balkans and in the Pannonian Basin, lying between latitudes 41° and 47° N, and longitudes 18° and 23° E. The country covers a total area of 88,499 km² (34,170 sq mi), including the disputed territory of Kosovo, or 77,589 km² (29,957 sq mi), excluding Kosovo.

With eight neighboring countries, Serbia shares borders with more countries than any other European country except Germany, tying with Austria for second place. Its total border length amounts to 2,027 km (1,260 mi), both with Kosovo included or excluded: Albania 115 km (71 mi), Bosnia and Herzegovina 302 km (188 mi), Bulgaria 318 km (198 mi), Croatia 241 km (150 mi), Hungary 151 km (94 mi), North Macedonia 221 km (137 mi), Montenegro 203 km (126 mi) and Romania 476 km (296 mi). The border with Albania and parts of the borders with North Macedonia and Montenegro (159 km/99 mi and 78 km/49 mi, respectively) remain disputed, as following Kosovo's declaration of independence, many countries recognized these sections as part of Kosovo's international boundary. Consequently, the 352 km (219 mi) border between Serbia and Kosovo is treated either as an "administrative line" by Serbia and non-recognizing states, or as an international border by Kosovo and those that recognize its independence.

The Pannonian Plain covers the northern third of the country (the regions of Bačka, Banat, Syrmia and Mačva), while the easternmost part of Serbia, the Timok Valley, extends into the Wallachian Plain. The terrain of central Serbia consists chiefly of hills traversed by rivers. Mountains dominate the southern third of the country: the Dinaric Alps extend across the west and southwest, while the Carpathian and Balkan mountains extend in a north–south direction across the east, and the Rhodope Mountains covers the southeastern corner of the country. Elevation ranges from 2,169 metres (7,116 ft) at the Midžor peak in the Balkan Mountains to just 17 metres (56 ft) near at Prahovo in the Timok Valley. Karst topography is prominent in the Dinaric Alps and Carpathian Mountains with country hosting about 1,500 of deep caves, ten of which are longer than 2,000 m (6,561 ft).

Almost the entire territory of Serbia belongs to the Black Sea drainage basin, except for the river Pčinja, which flows into the Aegean Sea. The Danube, the second-longest river in Europe, flows through Serbia for 588 kilometres, or about a fifth of its overall length, and represents the country's major source of fresh water. It is joined by its largest tributaries, the Great Morava (which, together with the West Morava, forms a 493 km (306 mi) river system, the longest entirely within Serbia), the Sava and the Tisza.

Due to the configuration of the terrain, natural lakes are sparse and small; most are located in the lowlands of the north of the country, such as the aeolian Lake Palić and numerous oxbow lakes along rivers. However, there are numerous artificial lakes, mostly dammed reservoirs, the largest being Đerdap Lake on the Danube, with an area of 163 km² (63 sq mi) on the Serbian side (a total area of 253 km² (98 sq mi) is shared with Romania), followed by Vlasina Lake in the southeast. The country has an abundance of mineral and hot springs, with more than a thousand sources.

Serbia has a temperate climate, more precisely classified as a humid continental and humid subtropical climate. In the north, the climate is more continental, with cold winters and hot, humid summers, along with well-distributed rainfall. In the south, summers and autumns are drier, while winters are relatively cold, with heavy snowfall in the mountains and highlands. Differences in elevation, proximity to the large river basins, as well as exposure to winds, account for climate variations. The coldest part of the country is the Pešter plateau in the Dinaric Alps in the southwest, where winters are particularly harsh.

Mean monthly temperatures range between 0 °C (32 °F) in January and 22 °C (72 °F) in July. The lowest recorded temperature in Serbia was −39.5 °C (−39.1 °F), recorded on 13 January 1985 at Karajukića Bunari in Pešter, while the highest was 44.9 °C (112.8 °F), recorded on 24 July 2007 in Smederevska Palanka.

One of the climatic features of Serbia is the Košava, a cold and very squally southeastern wind that originates in the Carpathian Mountains and follows the Danube northwest through the Iron Gates, where it gains a jet effect and continues to Belgrade, spreading as far south as Niš.

Covering only 1.2% of Europe, Serbia is home to 39% of European vascular flora, 40% of reptile and amphibian fauna, 51% of fish fauna, 67% of mammal fauna, and 74% of European bird fauna. The area of Tara National Park is the last region in the country where brown bears can still roam free, while the Uvac Nature Reserve is considered one of the last habitats of the griffon vulture in Europe.

With 37% of its territory covered by forest, Serbia is considered a moderately forested country, compared with global forest coverage of 30% and the European average of 33%. The total forest area in Serbia is 2,854,596 hectares (7,055,101 acres), or about 0.4 hectares (1 acre) per inhabitant. The most common trees are beech, oak, pine, spruce, and fir. In addition to these, the country is also home to endemic species such as the Serbian spruce.

Serbia's biodiversity is conserved in 362 protected areas, encompassing 5,681 square kilometres (2,193 sq mi), or 7.3% of the country's territory. These include four national parks, 11 nature parks, 41 nature reserves, 10 "landscapes of outstanding features", 7 protected habitats, and 289 natural monuments.

Serbia is a parliamentary republic. The current constitution was adopted in 2006 following the dissolution of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. The Constitutional Court reviews the constitutionality of laws and other general acts.

The President is the head of state, elected by popular vote to a five-year term and limited to a maximum of two terms. In addition to being the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and representing the country in international affairs, the president has the procedural duty of proposing a candidate for prime minister to the parliament. Aleksandar Vučić is the current president following the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections.

Executive power is primarily exercised by the Government, headed by the Prime Minister and composed of cabinet ministers. The government proposes legislation and the budget, executes laws, and determines and conducts domestic and foreign policy. The current prime minister is Đuro Macut, elected in 2025.

The National Assembly is a unicameral legislative body composed of 250 proportionally elected deputies who serve four-year terms. It has the power to enact laws, approve the budget, elect and dismiss the prime minister and other ministers, declare war, and ratify international treaties and agreements. Following the 2023 parliamentary elections, the Serbian Progressive Party, together with its coalition partners, holds a supermajority.

The first political parties were established in the 1880s. The Progressive Party and People's Radical Party dominated political life in the Kingdom of Serbia, with the latter continuing its political influence in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After World War II, Serbia was re-established as a one-party state and a constituent republic of socialist Yugoslavia, governed by the League of Communists of Serbia. With the fall of communism in 1990, a multi-party system was restored. Since 2012, Serbian politics has been dominated by the populist Serbian Progressive Party.

Country is classified as a "flawed democracy" and ranked 64th in the world on 2024 The Economist Democracy Index.

Serbia has a typical civil law legal system. In the process of its accession to the European Union, the legal system is being progressively harmonized with the community acquis, which constitutes the body of European Union law.

The judiciary is organized as a three-tiered system comprising the Supreme Court as the court of last resort, appellate courts as courts at second instance, and basic and high courts at first instance. Courts of special jurisdiction include the Administrative Court, business courts (including the Business Court of Appeal at second instance), and misdemeanour courts (including the Misdemeanour Appellate Court at second instance). The High Magistrate Council appoints all judges and oversees their disciplinary proceedings, while the High Prosecutorial Council appoints all public prosecutors and handles disciplinary proceedings concerning prosecutors.

Law enforcement is the responsibility of the Serbian Police. It performs general police duties, including criminal investigation, patrol activities, traffic policing, and border control.