47 Fun Facts About Serbia

Belgrade sits at the confluence of the Danube and which other river?

The Sava meets the Danube beneath Belgrade Fortress; the Celtic Scordisci settled that ridge in the 3rd century BC and gave the town its Celtic name, Singidunum.

Which country does Serbia claim to border only through the disputed territory of Kosovo?

Albania meets only Kosovo, and Serbia counts that as its own border because it doesn't recognise Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence.

Which dynasty ruled Serbia from 1166 to 1371 and raised it to a kingdom in 1217 and an empire in 1346?

The Nemanjic dynasty, founded by Stefan Nemanja, produced Stefan the First-Crowned (king from 1217) and Stefan Dusan (emperor from 1346); its last ruler, Uros the Weak, died in 1371.

Which Serbian ruler died leading his army against the Ottomans at the 1389 Battle of Kosovo?

Prince Lazar was killed at Kosovo, yet the battle ended without a clear victor, with heavy losses on both sides.

Who led the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottomans in 1804?

Karadjordje Petrovic led the 1804 revolt, and Serbia stayed free for almost a decade before the Ottoman army reoccupied it in 1813.

Serbia's independence was formally recognised at which 1878 peace settlement?

The Congress of Berlin met to revise Russia's Treaty of San Stefano, which had already forced the Ottomans to accept Serbia's independence, and made that recognition international.

On 1 December 1918, which new state was proclaimed in Belgrade?

The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes kept that name until 1929, when King Alexander abolished the constitution, ruled as dictator and renamed it Yugoslavia.

Which short-lived 1941 mini-state in western Serbia is called the first liberated territory in WWII Europe?

The Republic of Uzice held out for only about two months before German forces retook it at the end of November 1941.

Belgrade hosted the first summit of which international grouping in September 1961?

The Non-Aligned Movement drew in many newly independent former colonies in Africa and Asia, and its early successes came in pushing decolonisation.

In 1972, Kosovo and Serbia suffered Europe's largest post-war outbreak of which disease?

Smallpox came back with a pilgrim returning from the Middle East, and Yugoslavia stopped it with enforced quarantine and mass vaccination.

Which Serbian leader rose to power in 1989 and was later tried in The Hague, dying in his cell in 2006?

Slobodan Milosevic was forced out by mass protests on 5 October 2000, and his Hague trial dragged on so long that he died before any verdict.

The 1998-99 Kosovo War ended after which organisation intervened militarily?

NATO's bombing campaign began on 24 March 1999 and ended that June, once Belgrade agreed to withdraw its forces from Kosovo.

Which reformist Serbian prime minister was assassinated in 2003 in a plot by organised crime?

Zoran Djindjic was shot in March 2003, and Serbia declared a state of emergency to hunt plotters tied to the Zemun clan and a special police unit.

Serbia became an independent state again in 2006 after which partner left their union?

Montenegro's May 2006 independence vote left Serbia a landlocked country.

Which court advised that Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia broke no international law?

The International Court of Justice gave that opinion in 2010 at Serbia's own initiative, after Belgrade had sought it hoping to have the declaration judged illegal.

Serbia's parliament formally proclaimed what stance in December 2007?

Military neutrality was declared to hold until a referendum makes the final decision on whether Serbia joins any military alliance.

What is Serbia's highest peak outside Kosovo, at 2,169 metres on the Bulgarian border?

Midzor's summit was off-limits to tourists from both sides of the border until the early 1990s, which kept the nature around it untouched.

Serbia's biggest lake is a Danube reservoir behind a dam at which famous gorge?

The Iron Gates dam, built by Yugoslavia and Romania, raised the Danube until it drowned the island of Ada Kaleh, whose Turkish residents had to move.

What is the name of the cold, squally southeasterly wind that is a signature of Serbia's climate?

The Kosava gathers speed because a narrow Danube gorge squeezes it like a jet nozzle, before it blows northwest along the river.

Which Roman emperor, born at Naissus in today's Serbia, called the Council of Nicaea?

Constantine the Great backed Christianity for decades and ended its persecution, yet he was baptised only on his deathbed in 337.

What is Serbia's national drink?

Slivovitz is often distilled at home, and at festivities it accompanies toasts wishing everyone good health.

Serbian is a rare European language that regularly uses which two alphabets side by side?

Cyrillic and Latin both fill daily life, though Serbia's 2006 constitution makes Cyrillic the official script.

Slava, inscribed by UNESCO as intangible heritage, is the Serbian veneration of what?

A family's patron saint is honoured with a Slava cake that is blessed with wine, cut crosswise and turned.

Which Serbian monastery, famed for its white marble churches, became a World Heritage Site in 1986?

Studenica's founder, a ruler of Serbia, died a monk on Mount Athos, but his remains were later brought back to rest at Studenica.

Which Belgrade-based writer won the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature for works such as 'The Bridge on the Drina'?

Ivo Andric had been Yugoslavia's envoy in Berlin; when Germany invaded in 1941 he returned to Belgrade and wrote the novel there in seclusion.

Besides 'When Father Was Away on Business', which film won Emir Kusturica the Palme d'Or?

Underground won Kusturica his second Palme d'Or in 1995, a decade after When Father Was Away on Business; Time of the Gypsies brought him Best Director at Cannes in 1989.

The Exit festival, staged at the Petrovaradin Fortress until 2025, was held in which city?

Novi Sad lost Exit after its organisers backed Serbia's student protests, said they faced mounting pressure and pulled the festival out of Serbia.

Which small Serbian town has hosted a famous trumpet festival since 1961?

Guca's festival began in a churchyard in 1961 with just four trumpet bands, and by the 2000s it was drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Belgrade's international airport is named after which famous inventor?

Nikola Tesla died in New York in 1943, but his ashes were later brought to Belgrade, to the museum dedicated to him.

At which tournament did Novak Djokovic win his first Grand Slam singles title?

Long before his 2008 Australian Open win, a coach spotted a six-year-old Djokovic at a tennis camp in the mountain resort where his parents ran a restaurant.

Which Belgrade club won football's European Cup in 1991?

Red Star beat Marseille on penalties in Bari, but the Yugoslav Wars then forced the holders to play their European home games away from Belgrade.

Serbia's men won Olympic gold at Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 in which sport?

Water polo gold in Paris came even though Serbia's men lost three group games and scraped into the knockouts in fourth place.

Which Serbian centre, a 1989 Lakers draft pick, entered the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2019?

Vlade Divac was traded by the Lakers to Charlotte in 1996 for the draft rights to a teenage Kobe Bryant.

Which region forms Serbia's fertile northern third on the Pannonian Plain?

Vojvodina was repopulated under Habsburg rule with German settlers from Swabia and Bavaria, brought in to develop its farmland.

What is Serbia's largest ethnic minority, concentrated in the far north?

Hungarians in the north became a minority when the 1920 Treaty of Trianon redrew the borders around them.

Which Neolithic culture is named for a village site on the Danube near Belgrade?

Vinca's type site was dug by archaeologist Miloje Vasic, who mistook the Neolithic settlement for a Greek colony.

Which Roman emperor had a bridge built across the Danube near today's Kladovo, Serbia, for his war on Dacia?

Trajan had the bridge built as a supply route for his legions, and the war it served ended with Dacia conquered and annexed.

Serbia's currency, the dinar, has traditionally been divided into 100 of what?

Para was an Ottoman coin name, and it stayed on as the hundredth of a dinar after Prince Mihailo reintroduced Serbia's own currency in 1868.

Serbia's flag is a horizontal tricolour of which colours, top to bottom?

Red, blue, white turns Russia's white, blue and red upside down, and popular stories say that's exactly how Serbia's tricolour was first proposed.

Which Serbian grilled dish is a spiced patty of mixed pork, beef and lamb?

Pljeskavica is a hand-pressed patty of mixed pork, beef and lamb, grilled and served in lepinja bread; cevapcici are the caseless minced sausages and gibanica the cheese pie.

Which Belgrade-born performance artist became famous for gruelling endurance pieces?

Marina Abramovic sat silently at MoMA for nearly three months in 2010, facing one stranger after another in The Artist Is Present.

Which 1690 exodus saw tens of thousands of Serbs under Patriarch Arsenije III follow the retreating Habsburg armies north?

The Great Migration's refugees received Emperor Leopold I's privileges of 1690 and 1691, which granted the Serbs church autonomy in the Habsburg lands.

Serbia annexed Kosovo and Vardar Macedonia in which pair of wars?

The Balkan Wars ended with Bulgaria turning on its former allies, losing, and ceding territory at Bucharest in 1913.

Which People's Radical Party leader was prime minister when World War I began, and again in the 1920s?

Nikola Pasic signed the 1917 Corfu Declaration while leading Serbia's government in exile on that Greek island.

Which Serbian mountain has a 2,017-metre summit named for a botanist and the largest ski resort?

Kopaonik's top, Pancic's Peak, honours botanist Josif Pancic, who tracked down the rare Serbian spruce on Mount Tara in 1875.

Which Sumadija city, later home to the Zastava works, became Serbia's capital in 1818?

Kragujevac was also where German soldiers shot some 2,800 men and boys, schoolboys among them, in an October 1941 reprisal.

Which Serbian sportsman won the NBA MVP award in 2021, 2022 and 2024?

Nikola Jokic was picked only 41st overall by Denver in 2014, yet he became MVP and led the Nuggets to the 2023 NBA title.