Balkans | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: Subhajit Sahu
Date: 2019-03-26

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans


00:01:41 1 Name
00:01:49 1.1 Etymology
00:02:16 1.2 Historical names and meaning
00:02:26 1.2.1 Classical antiquity and the early Middle Ages
00:03:20 1.2.2 Late Middle Ages and Ottoman period
00:05:16 1.3 Evolution of meaning in 19th and 20th century
00:07:38 1.4 Southeast Europe
00:08:15 1.5 Current
00:09:13 2 Definitions and boundaries
00:09:23 2.1 Balkan Peninsula
00:12:18 2.2 Balkans
00:13:38 2.3 Western Balkans
00:14:38 3 Criticism of the geographical definition
00:17:44 4 Nature and natural resources
00:21:08 5 History and geopolitical significance
00:21:19 5.1 Antiquity
00:23:56 5.2 Early modern period
00:25:40 5.3 Recent history
00:25:48 5.3.1 World Wars
00:30:01 5.3.2 Cold War
00:31:26 5.3.3 Post–Cold War
00:35:50 6 Politics and economy
00:40:36 6.1 Regional organizations
00:40:49 7 Statistics
00:40:58 8 Demographics
00:41:24 8.1 Religion
00:43:05 8.2 Languages
00:43:51 8.3 Urbanization
00:44:29 9 Time zones
00:44:59 10 Culture
00:45:12 11 See also



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SUMMARY
=======
The Balkans, also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographic area in southeastern Europe with various definitions and meanings, including geopolitical and historical. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria from the Serbian-Bulgarian border to the Black Sea coast. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea on the northwest, the Ionian Sea on the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south and southeast, and the Black Sea on the east and northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala, 2,925 metres (9,596 ft), in the Rila mountain range.
The concept of the Balkan peninsula was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered the Balkan Mountains the dominant mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. The term of Balkan Peninsula was a synonym for European Turkey in the 19th century, the former provinces of the Ottoman Empire in Southeast Europe. It had a geopolitical rather than a geographical definition, further promoted during the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the early 20th century. The definition of the Balkan peninsula natural borders are not coinciding with the technical definition of a peninsula and hence modern geographers are rejecting the idea of a Balkan peninsula, while the scholars usually discuss the Balkans as a region. The term steadily got, especially since the 1990s, a stigmatized and pejorative meaning related to the process of Balkanization, and hence the rather used alternative term for the region is Southeast Europe.