A2 — elementaryCulture and realia

Serbia: geography & society

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Serbia's geography and society: the country you live in

A language is spoken in a real country, with rivers, mountains and towns. In “City & transport” you learned the street and the bus; now step back and look at the whole of Serbia: where Vojvodina is and where the south begins, where the Danube flows, where people go skiing and what an opština is. This is a map lesson: the background that makes sense of names in the news, addresses on envelopes and neighbours' talk of where they are “from”.

Cities: where the country lives

Serbia has several large towns and one very large city. These four you will hear most often:

Examples

City	Where it is, what it is known for
Beograd	the capital, about 1.7 million with its suburbs (2022); where the Sava meets the Danube
Novi Sad	the second city, centre of Vojvodina; Petrovaradin Fortress
Niš	the largest city of the south; ancient, birthplace of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great
Kragujevac	the heart of Šumadija; the first capital of modern Serbia (1818–1841)

This list already draws the country's axis: the north (sever; Novi Sad), the centre (Kragujevac), the south (jug; Niš), with Belgrade in between as the hub. Place the other towns on that axis yourself: Subotica in the far north, Čačak and Užice in the west, Leskovac in the south. Read them the Serbian way (j as in yes, c as in cats): Kragujevac is roughly KRAH-goo-yeh-vats.

Regions: Vojvodina, Šumadija, the west, the south

Each historical region has a character of its own:

Examples

Region	Character
Vojvodina	the north: flat, many nationalities; the country's breadbasket
Šumadija	the centre: hills and woods (the name comes from šuma “forest”); the Serbian “heartland”
western Serbia	the Zlatibor and Tara mountains, villages, tourism
southern Serbia	Niš, Leskovac and the valleys; a distinctive accent

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

Serbia's geography and society

Srbija: a landlocked Balkan country, about 6.6 million people (2022 census); about 80% Serbs, the largest minorities Hungarians, Bosniaks and Roma; most believers Orthodox, with Catholics and Muslims. The capital Beograd (Belgrade) stands where the Sava flows into the Dunav (Danube). The main axis is the valley of the Morava, where the main roads run.

Cities

Examples

City	Where, known for
Beograd	capital, about 1.7 million with suburbs; Sava meets Danube
Novi Sad	second city, centre of Vojvodina; Petrovaradin Fortress
Niš	largest city of the south; ancient, birthplace of Constantine
Kragujevac	heart of Šumadija; first capital of modern Serbia (1818–1841)

The axis: north – centre – south, Belgrade as the hub. More towns: Subotica (far north), Čačak and Užice (west), Leskovac (south).

Regions

Examples

Region	Character
Vojvodina	north, plain, breadbasket; autonomous province, centre Novi Sad; Hungarians, Slovaks, Rusyns among Serbs; from vojvoda “voivode, duke”
Šumadija	centre, hills and woods; the “heartland”, cradle of the uprisings against Ottoman rule (1804, 1815); from šuma “forest”
western Serbia	Zlatibor and Tara mountains, villages, tourism
southern Serbia	Niš, Leskovac and the valleys; a distinctive accent

Rivers and mountains

Main river: Dunav (north and borders). Tributaries: Sava (from the west, to Belgrade), Tisa (Tisza; north, Vojvodina), Morava (inland). The Drina flows into the Sava and marks the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The north is a plain; most mountains lie south of the Sava and the Danube: Kopaonik (centre, towards the south; main ski resort), Zlatibor and Tara (west, for walks and fresh air).

Administration

Levels: an okrug (district) is made of opštine (municipalities); large centres have grad (city) status.
Opština: your unit of bureaucracy; your address belongs to it, you go there for certificates.
Currency: dinar (code RSD; price tags often say din); prices are in dinars.

Kosovo and the EU: facts, no judgements

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008; Serbia does not recognise it; among other states, some have and some have not.
Serbia is an official EU candidate (status since 2012, negotiations since 2014), with no set accession date. It is not in the EU.