What is a list of the Balkan countries? | Reference.com What is a list of the Balkan countries? A: Quick Answer The Balkan countries, as of 2014, are Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece. The European section of Turkey also lies within the Balkan Peninsula. Full Answer The Balkan Peninsula which gives its name to these countries lies in the southeast region of Europe. Albania is located along the Adriatic Sea, and its capital city is Tirane. Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital is Sarajevo. That country is located south of Croatia and is mostly landlocked. Bulgaria is located along the Black Sea; its capital is Sofia. Croatia has an hourglass shape squeezed between Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina; its capital is Zagreb. Greece is located on the southwest tip of the Balkan Peninsula; its capital is Athens. Montenegro is located on the Adriatic Sea north of Albania; its capital is Podgorica. Romania has the largest land mass and a western shore on the Black Sea, and its capital is Bucharest.

Serbia is landlocked in the center of the peninsula; its capital is Belgrade. The smaller country of Macedonia is landlocked south of Serbia, and its capital is Skopje. A small section of Turkey lies within the Balkan Peninsula. Its largest city, Istanbul, is the only city to straddle Asia and Europe, with the European side laying on the southeastern point of the Balkan Peninsula. Balkans | Britannica.com Balkans Alternative Titles: Balkan Peninsula, Balkan States Related Topics Bosnia and Herzegovina Balkans, also called Balkan Peninsula, easternmost of Europe’s three great southern peninsulas. There is not universal agreement on the region’s components. The Balkans are usually characterized as comprising Albania , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Croatia , Kosovo , Macedonia , Montenegro , Romania , Serbia , and Slovenia —with all or part of each of those countries located within the peninsula. Portions of Greece and Turkey are also located within the geographic region generally defined as the Balkan Peninsula, and many descriptions of the Balkans include those countries too. Some define the region in cultural and historical terms and others geographically, though there are even different interpretations among historians and geographers.

Moreover, for some observers, the term “Balkans” is freighted with negative connotations associated with the region’s history of ethnic divisiveness and political upheaval. Increasingly in the early 21st century, another pair of definitional terms has gained currency: South East (also styled South-East, Southeast, South-Eastern, or Southeastern) Europe, which has been employed to describe the region in broad terms (though, again, without universal agreement on its component states) and the Western Balkans, which are usually said to comprise Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia. An introduction to the Balkan Peninsula. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Generally, the Balkans are bordered on the northwest by Italy , on the north by Hungary , on the north and northeast by Moldova and Ukraine , and on the south by Greece and Turkey or the Aegean Sea (depending on how the region is defined). The Balkans are washed by the Adriatic Sea in the west, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, and the Black Sea in the east.

In the north, clear geographic delimitation of the Balkans becomes difficult because the Pannonian Basin of the Great Alfold (Great Hungarian Plain) extends from central Europe into parts of Croatia, Serbia, and Romania. Similar Topics Land’s End Moldova—although located north of the Danube River , which is frequently cited as the region’s northeastern geographic dividing line—is included in the Balkans under some definitions by virtue of its long-standing historical and cultural connections with Romania. However, Moldova is politically and economically oriented more toward other onetime republics of the former Soviet Union than it is to the Balkan states. More often than not, Slovenia is included as a member of the Balkans because of its long historical ties with its neighbours to the southeast and because of its former incorporation in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and federal Yugoslavia . Greece, because its northern regions of Epirus and Macedonia are often considered parts of the Balkans, also appears on many lists of Balkan states, but it is arguably better characterized as primarily a Mediterranean country.

Turkey, too, is sometimes numbered among Balkan countries, as a result of Anatolia ’s presence on the peninsula, and the Ottoman Turks cast a long shadow of political dominance over the region for centuries (earning it the sobriquet “Turkey in Europe” or “European Turkey”). The word Balkan is Turkish and means “mountain,” and the peninsula is certainly dominated by this type of landform, especially in the west. The Balkan Mountains lie east-west across Bulgaria, the Rhodope Mountains extend along the Greek-Bulgarian border, and the Dinaric range extends down the Adriatic coast to Albania. By some definitions the region’s northern boundary extends to the Julian Alps and the Carpathians . Among these ranges extensive areas of good arable land are relatively scarce, though the valleys of the Danube, Sava , and Vardar rivers, eastern Bulgaria, parts of the Aegean Sea coast, and especially the Danubian Plain are exceptions. The mountains have a significant impact on the climate of the peninsula. The northern and central parts of the Balkans have a central European climate, characterized by cold winters, warm summers, and well-distributed rainfall.

The southern and coastal areas, however, have a Mediterranean type of climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, relatively rainy winters. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. History Randomizer Ethnic diversity is one of the region’s most characteristic social and political features. The most numerous of the groups is the South Slavs, who form the majority of the population in Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro. The Bulgarians, Macedonians, and Slovenes speak their own Slavic languages , while the Slavs of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro all speak dialects of Serbo-Croatian . In Balkan Europe, living is a constant amalgam of the new world and the old, leading most … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent The peculiar nature identified with “Balkanization”—that is, fragmentation of ethnic groups—derives in part from the compartmentalization brought about by the mountainous relief. But size is also an important determinant of the region’s character, for its area is large enough to have provided important bases of occupation for the Byzantine and Turkish civilizations.

Subjection to Eastern imperial forces isolated most Balkan societies from Western developments for almost two millennia and created feudal characteristics that persisted until World War I . After this war the viability of the relatively new Balkan states was threatened by political instability, ethnic division, worldwide economic depression, and the rise of the fascist states of Germany and Italy. After World War II , communism brought greater political stability to the Balkans—but at the cost of individual freedom, social and economic problems connected with rapid industrialization, and varying degrees of dominance by yet another outside power, the Soviet Union. At no point in history has it been easy to define the Balkans in any other than geographic terms (and, again, even that approach can be problematic). At times the peninsula has been divided along north-south lines, and at other times the divisions have been east-west; what constitutes the Balkans has varied with time as have the forces operating within the area. There are, however, some features of Balkan history that have remained consistent.

These include the fluidity of ethnic groups, the inability of the peoples of the region to agree and cooperate among themselves, a tendency on the part of political authority to devolve to local levels as soon as central power is weakened, the influence of foreign powers, and the difficulty of introducing into the area concepts that have evolved in a different political and social context . Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest This article covers the history of the region as first defined above from antiquity to the early 21st century. An overview of the region’s physical and human geography and of the history can be found in the article Europe . For discussion of physical and human geography, along with the history of individual countries in the region, see Albania , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Croatia , Greece , Kosovo , Macedonia , Moldova , Montenegro , Romania , Serbia , Slovenia , and Turkey . Area 257,400 square miles (666,700 square km). Pop. (2002 est.) 59,297,000.

Antiquity Illyrians and Thracians Archaeological evidence indicates that the Balkans were populated well before the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age; about 10,000 years ago). At the dawn of recorded history, two Indo-European peoples dominated the area: the Illyrians to the west and the Thracians to the east of the great historical divide defined by the Morava and Vardar river valleys. The Thracians were advanced in metalworking and in horsemanship. They intermingled with the Greeks and gave them the Dionysian and Orphean cults, which later became so important in classical Greek literature. The Illyrians were more exclusive , their mountainous terrain keeping them separate from the Greeks and Thracians. Thracian society was tribal in structure, with little inclination toward political cohesion. In what was to become a persistent phenomenon in Balkan history, unity was brought about mostly by external pressure. The Persian invasions of the 6th and 5th centuries bce brought the Thracian tribes together in the Odrysian kingdom, which fell under Macedonian influence in the 4th century bce.

The Illyrians, ethnically akin to the Thracians, originally inhabited a large area from the Istrian peninsula to northern Greece and as far inland as the Morava River . During the 4th century bce they were pushed southward by Celtic invasions, and thereafter their territory did not extend much farther north than the Drin River. Illyrian society, like that of the Thracians, was organized around tribal groups who often fought wars with one another and with outsiders. Under the Celtic threat they established a coherent political entity, but this too was destroyed by Macedonia. Thereafter the Illyrians were known mainly as pirates who disturbed the trade of many Greek settlements on the Adriatic coast. The Romans were also affected and took police action, annexing much of Illyrian territory in the early 3rd century bce. An Illyrian kingdom based in modern-day Shkodër , Albania, remained an important factor until its liquidation by Roman armies in 168 bce. In the Roman Empire Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies The Romans were different from other major conquerors of the Balkans in that they first arrived in the west.

Later attacks were launched from the southeast as well, so that by the 1st century ce the entire peninsula was under Roman control. At the height of Roman power, the Balkan peoples were the most united of any time in their history, with a common legal system, a single ultimate arbiter of political power, and absolute military security. In addition, a vibrant commerce was conducted along the Via Egnatia , a great east-west land route that led from Dyrrhachium (modern Durrës , Albania) through Macedonia to Thessalonica (modern Thessaloníki , Greece) and on to Thrace. The northwestern part of the peninsula, including Dalmatia along the Adriatic coast as well as Pannonia around the Danube and Sava rivers, became the province of Illyricum . What is now eastern Serbia was incorporated into Moesia , which reached farther eastward between the Balkan Mountains and the Danube all the way to the Black Sea. The southeastern part of the peninsula was ruled as Thrace , and the southern part was brought into Macedonia.

The Romans largely regarded the Danube River as their northern frontier, but in the 2nd and 3rd centuries their authority was extended northward into Dacia , in what is now western Romania. Dacia had been the home of a people closely related to the Thracians. The Dacians had suffered invasion by a number of peoples, including the Scythians , a mysterious people probably of Iranian origin who were absorbed into the resident population. In the 3rd century bce they managed to contain Macedonian pressure from the south, but in later years they were much less able to fend off Celtic invaders from the northwest. By the 1st century ce a substantial Dacian state extended as far west as Moravia and threatened Roman command of the Danube in the Balkans. The extension of the Dacian state and Dacian raids across the river into Moesia prompted the emperor Trajan in the first decade of the 2nd century to march into Dacia, obliterate the Dacian state and Dacian society, and establish a Roman colony that lasted until barbarian incursions forced a withdrawal back across the Danube beginning in 271.

Christendom Opium Wars The abandonment of Dacia in the second half of the 3rd century was a symptom of Rome’s decline, leading to major changes in the 4th century. In 330 the imperial capital was moved to Byzantium, so that any tribe intent on attacking the seat of Roman power and opulence would thenceforth move through the Balkans rather than into Italy. In 391 Christianity became the official religion, and in 395 the empire was divided in two. The dividing line ran through the Balkans: Illyricum went to the western sector under Rome; the remainder went to the eastern half and was ruled from Byzantium (by this time named Constantinople). This deep and long-lasting division did little to alleviate the barbarian incursions of the times. The 5th century saw devastation by, among others, the Alani , the Goths , and the Huns . Most of these invaders soon left or were assimilated , but such was not to be the case with the Slavs , who first arrived in the 6th century. The Slavs were settlers and cultivators rather than plunderers and within 100 years had become a powerful factor in the region.

They separated into four main groups: Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Bulgarians (the last being a Turkic tribe, the Bulgars , that was eventually absorbed by Slavs who had already settled in the eastern Balkans). Although in 681 the Bulgars established their own state, the Slavs acknowledged the suzerainty of the emperor in Constantinople. In the second half of the 9th century, Christianity was adopted by the Bulgarians and the Serbs, both of whom chose the Byzantine rather than Roman variant of the new religion. To the north of the Danube, the Romanians, though not Slav, made the same choice, while the Croats, together with most of the rest of what had been Rome’s section of the divided empire, became part of the western Christian community . The Albanians, isolated behind their mountain chains, were not much affected by either branch of Christianity. The divisions and competition between Rome and Constantinople intensified, with the two communities separating irrevocably in 1054.

The dividing line of 395 was thus reinforced: the Croats and Slovenes became an integral part of Roman Catholic Europe, with its Latin script and culture , and the Serbs, Bulgarians, and Romanians joined the Greeks in their allegiance to Eastern Orthodoxy . The Orthodox east Within the Orthodox world two monks, Cyril and Methodius , devised an alphabet that enabled their disciples to translate religious texts into Slavonic. This new alphabet enabled the establishment of a liturgical and literary language of the Balkans, but it also meant that, with Greek remaining in use in commerce and in the administration of the Byzantine Empire, the Orthodox world no longer had a common language that functioned as Latin did in the Catholic world. The lack of a universal language developed in part from a political assumption established at the very beginning of the Orthodox Christian world: that the church and the state were twin pillars of legitimate authority. Therefore, whenever a state separated from the Byzantine Empire, the impulse was for an accompanying church to be established. This association of state and church was intensified by the fear of invasion by non-Christians, a fear shared by state and church and ruler and ruled.

Ruler and ruled were much less united, however, when social tensions arose—especially when, as was frequently the case, these tensions found expression in support for religious heresies. Any sign of independent thinking within the church was persecuted as a danger to temporal as well as spiritual power, and this hindered the development of those forms of intellectual exchange that later proved vital to the flowering of intellectual life in the West—Catholic Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia included. Take a journey to an isolated monastery on top of a remote hillside. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The Byzantine state’s military power, like that of the Slavic kingdoms that were eventually to challenge it, rested upon landlords who held property in return for furnishing an agreed number of troops in time of war. The Byzantines developed an extensive and highly corrupt civil service, and the imperial capital’s wealth acted as a dangerous magnet, drawing ambitious Balkan leaders to it with disastrous results. There were recurrent conflicts between Constantinople and the first Bulgarian empire until the latter was crushed in the early 11th century. Although reinvigorated by its victory, the Byzantine Empire soon faced further threats.

From the east came the Seljuq Turks, a Muslim people whose victory in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 destroyed Byzantium’s security in Anatolia. Some 125 years later the threat came from Western crusaders , who in 1204 descended upon and seized the imperial capital, holding it until 1261. They also divided the empire into small fiefdoms, most of which lasted little longer than their first rulers. The Crusades had two profound effects upon the Balkans. In the first place the experience of Norman rule greatly intensified the hatred of the Eastern Orthodox against Westerners and Catholics. Second, the weakening of the empire allowed the Venetians to assume domination of seaborne trading in the eastern Mediterranean. The loss of both Anatolia and maritime supremacy deprived the empire of essential reserves of manpower, food, and wealth—losses that it could replenish only in its Balkan possessions. In the late 12th century, attempts to levy higher taxes led the Bulgarians to revolt and establish a second empire, but this was soon enfeebled by costly wars and by the inability of the ruling Asen dynasty to control local notables.

Byzantium’s life was prolonged by these inadequacies and by the inability of the Slavs to unite. In the 14th century Bulgaria was eclipsed by the rising power of Serbia, where Stefan Dušan became king in 1331. This greatest of Serbia’s medieval rulers left behind a legal code, drawn up in 1349, and a legacy of conquest that was legendary. He is also thought to have pondered the seizure of Constantinople, though by the time of his death in 1355 he had taken no positive action toward securing that goal. The Catholic west Political stability and unity were no more apparent among the Catholic Balkan Christians than among the Orthodox. The Croats established their own kingdom in the 10th century under Tomislav but in 1102 agreed to become part of the Hungarian monarchy. In the 14th century there was a short-lived Bosnian kingdom under the Kotromanić dynasty , but it also joined Hungary—even though Bosnia was less Catholic in its composition because many Bogomil heretics had taken refuge there.

Hungary had already established its authority as early as the 11th century in Transylvania , where it introduced both Szeklers , a Hungarian-speaking people, and German-speaking Saxons . To the east the kingdoms of Walachia and Moldavia did not emerge until the 14th century; their preoccupations were less with the Turks than with the Hungarians and the Mongols. The Ottomans Conquest and rule While the various Balkan states fought among themselves for domination in the area, a new danger appeared in the south. In 1362 the Ottoman Turks took Adrianople (modern Edirne , Turkey). This was the beginning of their conquest of the Balkan Peninsula—a process that took more than a century. Serbia fell after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, Bulgaria in 1396, Constantinople in 1453, Bosnia in 1463, Herzegovina in 1482, and Montenegro in 1499. The conquest was made easier by divisions among the Orthodox peoples and by the even deeper rift between the Western and Eastern Christians.

Although the Albanians under Skanderbeg frustrated the Ottomans for a time (1443–68), the Ottomans marched ever northward. In 1526 they defeated the Hungarians in the Battle of Mohács , and three years later they sieged Vienna unsuccessfully. The Ottomans now controlled much of central as well as southeastern Europe, but in the northern and western areas their power was much diluted. Transylvania, Moldavia , and Walachia acknowledged the suzerainty of the sultan but managed their own internal affairs—as did Montenegro, which was too mountainous to subdue—while the trading centre of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik , Croatia) remained independent both de facto and de jure. The western periphery , including Croatia, was still open to the intellectual storms generated by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation , which did not much affect the central Orthodox areas. In these central areas the Ottoman conquest brought complete social and political revolution. The old aristocracy almost everywhere was removed from power, and it frequently was destroyed. The main exceptions were Bosnia and Albania , where many nobles converted to Islam and retained their land.

In Bosnia the Bogomils , equally persecuted by Orthodoxy and Catholicism, had religious as well as material reasons for conversion. In almost all areas the Ottomans introduced the timar system, based on previous Byzantine practices. All land was owned by the sultan—God’s representative on earth—but it was leased out to spahis (calvary corps members), who in return undertook to provide troops in proportion to the amount of land held. The peasants worked the land and thus generated income for the spahis, though in the first centuries of Ottoman rule taxation and other levies were usually lighter and more regular than they had been under Christian rule. The Ottoman authorities seldom exerted pressure on Christians to convert to Islam , though there were fiscal and legal benefits in doing so. Administratively, the empire was divided into millets , each millet consisting of a single religious denomination. The religious leaders were made responsible for the collection of state taxes and for the maintenance of order within the religious community. Most Balkan Christians, being Orthodox, were members of the millet headed by the Greek patriarch in Constantinople.

The taxes that they were required to pay included the devşirme , an occasional levy on male children who were taken from Christian households to be converted to Islam and trained as members of the administrative elite of the empire, including the military Janissary corps. Despite the horrors of such separation, there is evidence that children who rose high in the imperial service favoured their native areas. Decline and retreat The devşirme was last levied in the 17th century, by which time the Ottoman Empire was in irreversible decline. After repelling a second attempt to take Vienna in 1683, the Austrians and then the Russians began to push back the sultan’s frontiers. Following the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699, Hungary, Croatia-Slavonia, and Transylvania reverted to the Habsburg crown, and, with the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, Austria regained the Banat of Temesvár . Immediately thereafter the Austrians invited the Serbs, who had been their recent allies, to settle in the border areas of the Habsburg lands as frontier guards; in return, the Serbs were allowed religious freedom.

The Austrian Militärgrenze, or “Military Frontier,” thus took the momentous step of introducing Orthodox Serbs into Catholic Croatian and Hungarian territory. Meanwhile, the Ottomans suffered further defeats throughout the 18th century. Through the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774), Russia exacted a promise of free navigation on the Danube and insisted on the right to protect Orthodox Christians in the empire. The empire’s inflexibility accounts for much of its weakness. As the Ottoman system was officially regarded as the implementation on Earth of God’s will, it could not be changed. This attitude was pervasive: administrative practices remained unaltered; guilds were set at prescribed numbers, and new ones were difficult to establish; most exports were technically illegal; and estate holders were not legally entitled to bequeath their estates to their heirs. Most of these regulations were evaded by corruption and bribery. At the same time, there was increasing trading in office, not least in tax farming. Under this system the right to collect taxes in a given area could be purchased from a government agency or from government officials.

The government determined the amount of tax owed by each individual tax farmer directly to the government, and tax collectors were free to take as much as they could from the taxpayers and pocket the difference. Inevitably the burden of these increased costs was passed down to the peasant and to poor artisans in the towns. In Moldavia and Walachia the local nobility had adopted Greek culture, and it was partly through them that Greek influence was extended throughout the Orthodox church in the 18th century, leading to the abolition of the separate Serbian patriarchate in 1766 and of the autocephaly of the Bulgarian church in 1767. The subsequent appointment of Greek bishops and even priests in non-Greek areas caused great resentment; this was exacerbated by the increased trafficking in church offices during the century, which once again passed the costs of purchasing favours down the system until they fell ultimately on poor villagers and townspeople. On the land the high profits to be made from the sale (usually by technically illegal export) of cash crops such as cotton brought about the rise of the çiftlik , a commercially oriented estate whose owner was frequently an absentee landlord and whose peasants were tied to the land and subjected to harsh labour dues.

In the last two decades of the 18th century, these factors combined with further encroachment by Austria and Russia to produce a virtual collapse of central governmental authority in the Ottoman Balkans. In many areas power lay not with Constantinople but with local warlords who had carved out their own fiefdoms, the most famous being the Albanian Ali Paşa Tepelenë of Janina (modern Ioánnina , Greece). In some instances these warlords provided some stability, but in most cases they exploited their subjects ruthlessly. Frustration over the weakness of central government rather than over its overbearing presence produced a Serbian uprising of 1804, the first successful Christian revolt against Ottoman rule. Page 1 of 3 Balkans - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) The Balkan Peninsula forms a large, roughly wedge-shaped area of land that extends southward from Central Europe toward the Mediterranean Sea. It is about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) wide in the north and stretches about 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) to its southern point, Cape Tainaron, in Greece.

The Balkans cover an area of about 243,000 square miles (629,000 square kilometers) that is divided into many countries. These are generally understood to include Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey in Europe, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Romania. The terrain of the region is generally mountainous and not very fertile, and many of the people struggle for their livelihood in communities that are virtually isolated from each other. Its history has been turbulent, with many wars, invasions, and feuds. Article Contributors Where is the Balkans Located? Balkan Peninsula Location Map Home Where is the Balkans Located? Balkan Peninsula Location Map The Balkans is a region in southern Europe that is named after the Balkan Mountains which distinguish the region. The Balkans cover an area running through Bulgaria and Serbia. The word Balkan is Turkish for a chain of a wooded mountains. Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro are all fully located within the Balkan Peninsula area.

The location of the Balkans on a map + Login or register to post comments by Rachel Bassett on Thu, 03/18/2010 - 09:46 Categories Which countries form the Iberian Peninsula? | Reference.com Which countries form the Iberian Peninsula? A: Quick Answer The Iberian Peninsula, which is located in southwestern Europe, is formed primarily by the three countries of Andorra, Spain and Portugal, and contains small portions of France and the British-owned territory of Gibraltar as well. The Iberian Peninsula covers approximately 225,000 square miles, and forms the southwestern-most corner of the European continent. It is the third largest peninsula in Europe; the Scandinavian Peninsula and Balkan Peninsula are the largest. Full Answer The Iberian Peninsula is one of the largest and oldest peninsulas in Europe. It was first inhabited by humans during the times of ancient Greece, when Greek settlers, called Iberians, settled onto its lands. The name for the peninsula derives from the Iberus River, which is the second-longest river within the Iberian Peninsula.

This peninsula forms the southernmost point of the European continent and contains several prominent physical features such as mountains and large rivers. It has a varied topography, including the Pyrenees Mountains in the northeast, which provide a physical buffer between the Iberian Peninsula and the surrounding European continent. The southern part of the peninsula borders the Strait of Gibraltar, which separates the peninsula from North Africa. The Iberian Peninsula is surrounded by two other bodies of water: the Atlantic Ocean forms the shores of the western and northern coastlines, while the Mediterranean Sea creates the boundary of the eastern shore. Political Map of Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria - Atlapedia® Online Bulgaria Bulgaria is located on the Balkan Peninsula of South East Europe. It is bound by Romania to the north, Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro (Serbia Rep.) to the west, Turkey to the southeast, Greece to the south and the Black Sea to the east.... Greece Greece is located on the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula in South East Europe and the territory also includes several hundred islands in the Ionian and Aegean Seas.

It is bound by Albania, Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, Turkey and the Aegean Sea to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Ionian Sea to the west.... The Balkans in WWI & most of the Bánát) Until 1918 belongs to the Hungarian half of the Habsburg Monarchy. Historically associated with Hungary, and dominated socially and politically by Magyar landlords and ethnic German townsmen and farmers, but the overall majority of the population is ethnic Romanian, and Romanian nationalism is rising. Romania has long aspired to annex Transylvania. The province takes no part in the Balkan Wars. Early in WWI (1914-15) Russian forces hold a narrow strip of northern Transylvania, but the front never advances so far again. In August 1916 Romania declares war and invades Transylvania, but Austrian troops (with German reinforcements) drive them out within two months. In the Treaty of Bucharest of May 1918 Romania cedes to Austria the control of the Carpathian passes between Romania and Transylvania. Romanian armies and Allied intervention defeat attempts by postwar Hungarian governments, incl. the Soviet Republic of April-Aug.

1919, to hold Transylvania by force of arms. In the Treaty of Trianon of June 1920 Romania gains all of historic Transylvania with some ethnically disputable strips west of it, plus two-thirds of Hungary's rich Bánát (the other third going to Yugoslavia). All these lands are part of Romania today. YUGOSLAVIA Before 1912 the South Slav lands that later join together as Yugoslavia are under six distinct jurisdictions. Two are independent South Slav states, Serbia and Montenegro. South Slav lands in Austria-Hungary are under three jurisdictions: Hungarian rule (most of Croatia, the later Voivodina); rule by the Western half of the Empire (Slovenia, Dalmatia); and joint rule (Bosnia-Hercegovina). The Ottoman Empire still holds Macedonia and the Sanjak of Novipazar. Territorial changes are treated below under the rubrics of the eight familiar Yugoslav republics and autonomous regions of the Tito era after 1945.

Already during the war, because of Serbia's wartime services, the Allies support the goal of a broad South Slav state in the western Balkans at the expense of Austria and Hungary. Émigré committees lay the foundation. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is proclaimed in Dec. 1918. In 1929 the name is changed to Yugoslavia. The borders cause much trouble, especially those with Italy (see under Slovenia and Croatia below) and Albania (q.v.). Not until 1924 are all the country's borders set. The territory delimited between 1919 and 1924 (plus some districts gained from Italy after WWII) is the Yugoslavia of 1991, at the time of its dissolution. The Serbs are the most numerous of the South Slav peoples, the most widespread (well represented in Croatia and Bosnia as well as in Serbia), and the ones with the proudest recent political and military history; they take the lead in constructing the new state.

Prewar Serbia's institutions form the core around which the new state coalesces: the Karadjordjević dynasty, the Serbian royal army, much of the civil service, and the capital of Belgrade. The 1921 constitution imitates the centralism of prewar Serbia, making little provision for ethnic differences or the distrust among at least six major nationalities. Bosnia- Hercegovina Annexed from the Ottoman Empire by the Austrians in 1908, after an occupation starting in 1878. Governed jointly by the two parts of the Empire, with no institutions of self-government until 1908. Ethnically the most perplexing of the major South Slav provinces, with three major communities (Serb, Croat, and Muslim) none of which is even nearly a majority of the population. In the Balkan Wars there are battles in the adjacent Sanjak of Novipazar, but Bosnia is not directly involved. Serbia has long wanted to annex Bosnia, and WWI is sparked by the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne by a Serb student in Sarajevo.

After Austria's initial attack on Serbia, Serbian counterattacks are launched into Bosnia in 1914-15. After 1915 the front moves south. Bosnia-Hercegovina, surrounded by active constituent members of the new Yugoslav state, is incorporated into this as a matter of course, but its undeveloped and divided political forces play no significant role in the creation of the state. The province continues through the 1920s as an administrative region with its prewar boundaries. Croatia (w/ Dalmatia) A long-standing entity within the Hungarian half of the Habsburg Empire, properly called Croatia-Slavonia. Its limited self-government in internal affairs is exercised by a parliament dominated by noble landowners. The population contains a significant minority of Serbs along the borders with Bosnia and Serbia. The coastal regions known as Dalmatia, inhabited mainly by Croats, mostly form a separate province; this belongs to the western half of the Empire, as does the Croat-inhabited part of the Istrian peninsula. Nationalism has been active among Croat intellectuals since the early 19th century, with a strong component of "Yugoslavism".

It is kept on a short leash by the authorities. No part of Croatia is touched directly by the Balkan Wars, though there is an upsurge of nationalist excitement. The eastern tip of Slavonia (known as Syrmia) is on the front lines of Austria's see-sawing war with Serbia in 1914-15, but quiet thereafter. Croats are among the leaders in assembling the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the end of the war. However, because of prewar Serb institutions at the core of the new state, plus Serbian pride, experience, and demographic preponderance, many Croats feel disadvantaged in their new country. Historic Croatia in the 1920s is still divided into Croatia-Slavonia (enlarged by two small parcels from Hungary) and Dalmatia (minus the city of Zadar and three islands, which go to Italy). Croatia has an ethnic claim to the port of Rijeka (Fiume) and parts of Istria, but Italy's historical claims prevail. A compromise settlement makes Rijeka a free city, but the Italians seize the city in 1922.

Kosovo Until 1912 a loosely defined Ottoman region. Kosovo is remembered historically by Serbs as "Old Serbia" but has had a mainly Albanian population for centuries; both Serbian and Albanian nationalists see it as integral to their national territory. Serbian forces conquer it in the First Balkan War and keep it, ignoring Albania's impotent protests. Serbian treatment of the local Albanian population is harsh. Kosovo is occupied by Austrian and Bulgarian forces from 1915 to the end of WWI, when Serbian armies reconquer the province. Retained by Serbia (within Yugoslavia) after the war despite a mostly unwilling population and protests from Albania. The final border settlement by the Allied Council of Ambassadors in 1921 leaves Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia with no conditions or special status. Macedonia Formerly a vague regional term for the Vardar valley and adjacent lands. Ethnic Macedonians have some national consciousness, but they are not recognized as a people by any neighbor. Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece each regards much of Macedonia as theirs by right; no clear division is agreed upon before they join to wrest it from the Ottomans in the Balkan Wars.

Serbian armies conquer the greater part of Macedonia from the Ottomans in the First Balkan War, and gain additional bits from the Bulgarians in the Second. The Serbian view is that Macedonians are merely Serbs speaking a dialect, and the new lands are incorporated directly into Serbia without any special status. In WWI most of Serbian Macedonia is overrun by Bulgarians from the east and Germans and Austrians from the north in late fall 1915, with further advances in 1916. The occupation continues until the end of the war, with an active front on the south. The Treaty of Neuilly of Nov. 1919 requires defeated Bulgaria to cede further small frontier areas to victorious Serbia. All of Serbian Macedonia is incorporated into Serbia as before without regard for Macedonian ethnicity or any special status. This resolution becomes a lasting point of strife with Bulgaria. Montenegro A more or less independent princely state for generations, independent in international law since 1878; the prince adopts the title of king in 1910. There is no parliament. Montenegrins share their dialect, their literary history and the Orthodox faith with the Serbs; the two peoples normally cooperate readily.

Montenegro, a party to the Balkan League against the Ottomans, launches the First Balkan War in Oct. 1912 with an attack into the Sanjak of Novipazar, later pushing also into northern Albania, taking Shkodër. Afterwards Montenegro is allowed to keep very little of its Albanian conquests, but it gains about half of the Sanjak after the Second Balkan War. Montenegro fights beside Serbia in WWI, and it also retakes Shkodër in June 1915. When Serbia collapses late in 1915 and Montenegro is overrun by the Austrians, the king orders his armies to surrender and flees to Italy. It remains occupied for the rest of the war. During the war Montenegrin exiles agitate for union with Serbia. In Nov. 1918 the Montenegrin assembly deposes the king in preparation for joining with Serbia in the new South Slav state, which happens the following month. Montenegro's revived ambition to expand into northern Albania is frustrated, apart from some minor border adjustments as determined by the Council of Ambassadors in Nov. 1921.

Its other 1920s borders are unchanged from before WWI. Serbia A fully independent constitutional monarchy (since 1878) with parliament having real authority. Serbia's antagonism towards Austria since 1903, and especially since Austria's annexation of Bosnia in 1908, is a defining feature of the Balkan scene. In the First Balkan War Serbia conquers Kosovo ("Old Serbia") and most of Macedonia from the Ottomans, and divides the Sanjak of Novipazar with Montenegro. Her armies drive through central Albania to the Adriatic at Durrës, but Serbia is not allowed to keep these gains. Serbia wins its battles with Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War but contents itself with small gains in Macedonia. In the early phases of WWI Serbia repels two Austrian invasions, counterattacking into Bosnia and Hungary. Its armies also reoccupy northeastern and central Albania, which the London Treaty of 1915 says they may keep. But a massive Austro-German attack in Oct. 1915, combined with Bulgaria's entry into the war, spells defeat.

Rather than surrender, the Serbian army and many civilians flee across the Albanian mountains to the sea in winter, suffering dreadful losses. Nearly the entire country is under harsh occupation from late 1915 to the end of the war. Overall, a fifth of the population perishes. Early in 1916 the Allies pick up the surviving soldiers at Vlorë and settle them on Corfu. A rebuilt Serbian army plays an important role on the Allies' Balkan front across northern Greece from the fall of 1916 until the collapse of the Central Powers in Sept. 1918. The Serbian government in Dec. 1914 raises the vague program of a union of the South Slav peoples. Serbia's leaders and many of its intellectuals view this prospect as a form of "Greater Serbia", an expansion of Serbia. The victorious Serbs, the only South Slav people with an army in the field at the end of the war, readily assume the role of first among equals in the creation of the postwar Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (see above under "Yugoslavia").

Within Yugoslavia Serbia keeps its prewar territory, including Kosovo and Macedonia, plus minor border regions from Bulgaria and Albania in the postwar settlements. The Voivodina (part of Serbia today) remains distinct in the Yugoslavia of the 1920s. Slovenia Before WWI the lands with a heavy Slovene population are integral parts of inner Austria (since the early Middle Ages); they make up all of one province and parts of four others. It is a prosperous agricultural region with some mining and industry, and high levels of education. Slovenes are culturally aware, but agitation for political autonomy or independence is muted before 1914. The Slovene region is unaffected by the Balkan Wars, but after May 1915 border areas with Italy are part of the WWI front. Slovene émigrés, claiming to represent Slovene public opinion, join in the planning and propaganda for a future South Slav state. The postwar "Slovenia" that joins the new South Slav state in Dec. 1918 with little controversy has only one pre-set border, with Croatia.

On the north, the border with Austria is favorably drawn in the Treaty of Saint-Germain of Sept. 1919, though Yugoslav claims to the Klagenfurt area are defeated in a plebiscite of Oct. 1920. In the east, two small pieces of prewar Hungary come in the Treaty of Trianon in June 1920, confirmed in 1922 after a struggle. In the west, where Slovenia's border is with Italy, Yugoslavia is unable to resist Italian claims to Gorizia, Gradisca, and northern Istria, despite predominantly Slovene populations in most of this area. The border is confirmed in the Treaty of Rapallo with Italy in Nov. 1920. Until 1929 Slovenia exists as a regional entity within the South Slav state. Voivodina Before the war a loosely conceived region where Serbs settled in southern Hungary in the early 18th century, in the provinces of the Bačka and the Bánát. Others (Hungarians, Slovaks, Germans, Romanians, and still more) settled these lands along with the Serbs, making the population ethnically ambiguous.

The wars of 1912 to 1918 touch these lands very little, except where the Danube is Austria's frontier with Serbia in the fighting of 1914-15. After WWI Yugoslavia is able to push through its claim to the Bačka and a third of the Bánát (the rest going to Romania). These provinces at first remain separate entities within the structure of Yugoslavia; only later do they come to be treated as territories annexed to Serbia. Recent historical atlases useful for this topic: Richard and Ben Crampton. Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. Dennis P. Hupchick and Harold E. Cox. The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the Balkans. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Paul Robert Magocsi. Historical Atlas of East Central Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993.

Balkan Peninsula --�Kids Encyclopedia | Children's Homework Help | Kids Online Dictionary | Britannica Balkan Peninsula (Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)) The Balkan Peninsula is a large piece of land in southeastern Europe. It is divided into many countries, including Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, and the European part of Turkey. Sometimes the region is ... Balkans (Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)) The Balkan region is the easternmost of Europe's three great southern peninsulas. In present-day reference the much-debated term Balkans includes all or parts of the countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia and ... To cite this page: Balkan Peninsula. Map/Still. Britannica Online for Kids. Web. Albania | history - geography | Britannica.com Albania, country in southern Europe , located in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula on the Strait of Otranto, the southern entrance to the Adriatic Sea .

The capital city is Tirana ( Tiranë ). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The fortress at Krujë, Alb. © DeA Picture Library Albanians refer to themselves as shqiptarë—often taken to mean “sons of eagles,” though it may well refer to “those associated with the shqip (i.e., Albanian) language”—and to their country as Shqipëria. They generally consider themselves to be descendants of the ancient Illyrians , who lived in central Europe and migrated southward to the territory of Albania at the beginning of the Bronze Age , about 2000 bce. They have lived in relative isolation and obscurity through most of their difficult history, in part because of the rugged terrain of their mountainous land but also because of a complex of historical, cultural, and social factors. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Because of its location on the Adriatic Sea, Albania has long served as a bridgehead for various nations and empires seeking conquest abroad. In the 2nd century bce the Illyrians were conquered by the Romans, and from the end of the 4th century ce they were ruled by the Byzantine Empire .

After suffering centuries of invasion by Visigoths , Huns , Bulgars , and Slavs , the Albanians were finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century. Ottoman rule cut off Albania from Western civilization for more than four centuries, but in the late 19th century the country began to remove itself from Ottoman influence and to rediscover old affinities and common interests with the West. Albania was declared independent in 1912, but the following year the demarcation of its boundaries by the great powers of Europe (Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia) assigned about half its territory and people to neighbouring states. Ruled as a monarchy between the World Wars, Albania emerged from the violence of World War II as a communist state that fiercely protected its sovereignty and in which almost all aspects of life were controlled by the ruling party. But with the collapse of other communist regimes beginning in 1989, new social forces and democratic political parties emerged in Albania.

That shift reflected the country’s continuing orientation toward the West, and it accorded with the Albanian people’s long-standing appreciation of Western technology and cultural achievements—even while retaining their own ethnic identity, cultural heritage, and individuality. Page 1 of 11 Albania - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) The Republic of Albania is located on the Balkan Peninsula. It is bordered on the south by Greece, on the east by Macedonia, on the northeast by Kosovo, and on the northwest by Montenegro. The Adriatic Sea washes its western shore. Albania became a communist state in 1946. In succeeding decades it became the poorest country of Europe. In the 1990s, like its Eastern European neighbors, it rejected communism. The Communist party itself was voted out of office in March 1992. Area 11,082 square miles (28,703 square kilometers). Population (2016 est.) 2,793,000. Article Contributors The Balkans Pick a Region :. . The Balkans The term Balkans is a geographical designation for the southeastern peninsula of the European continent.

Europe has many regions, of course, and has two other southern peninsulas--the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and the Italian peninsula. But no other region of Europe contains as many different peoples (in the technical sense, " nations ") as the Balkans. To understand who the peoples of the Balkans are, one must first know which countries make up the Balkans. The countries that make up the Balkans today include Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), and Bosnia Herzegovina (referred to as Bosnia throughout this text). Geographically, "European Turkey," a small region around Istanbul, is located in the Balkans. Some scholars also consider Croatia to be part of the Balkans. Balkan peoples are nations that live in the countries listed above. Most, but not all, share certain historical characteristics such as several centuries of association with the ruling Turks in the Ottoman Empire . A list of Balkan peoples today would include Greeks, Albanians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Bosnian Muslims.

Other smaller groups of people are also found in the Balkans such as the Vlachs and the Roma (Gypsies), neither of whom have a national state anywhere. Other population groups who inhabit the Balkans are members of nations which have countries elsewhere. For instance, Romania has a large minority of Hungarians, but there is also the country of Hungary right next to Romania. There is a Turkish minority in both Macedonia and Bulgaria, but the country of Turkey is close by. Sometimes scholars define the Balkans as the region that was conquered and ruled by the Ottoman Turks for varying periods of time after 1300. The Turks brought the Muslim faith, which is maintained today by Turks in the region and which was adopted by some Europeans as well. Aside from using the regional definition of the Balkans, one can simply and effectively classify European peoples by their languages. Most Europeans (and North and South Americans, also) speak related languages that are members of the Indo-European language family. Some of this family's main branches, such as the Germanic branch, are not currently represented in great numbers in the Balkans, as are the Romance, Albanian, Greek, and especially the Slavic branches.

The Romanians speak a Romance language related to Italian, Spanish, and French. Greek and Albanian each comprise branches of the Indo-European family. The Slavic peoples in the Balkans--the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, and Macedonians--speak languages related to Russian and Polish. There are also several non-Indo-European languages in the Balkans such as Turkish, Romany (the language of the Roma, sometimes called Gypsies), and Hungarian, which is spoken by the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Serbia, as well as in Hungary. Some people use the word Balkan in a derogatory way to imply that people who live in the Balkans are economically backward, spiteful, ill-disciplined, and untrustworthy. It is more appropriate and productive to use the term Balkan simply as a geographical, linguistic, or historical designation. Privacy Statement and Copyright ï¿½ 1999-2002 by Wheeling Jesuit University/Center for Educational Technologiesï¿½. All rights reserved. ...

Question: Albania and Serbia are located on what peninsula?
Answer: Balkan