The Balkans, also known as the Balkan Peninsula,
or Southeast Europe, is a geographic area
in Europe with various definitions. 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.
== Name ==
=== Etymology ===
The word Balkan comes from Ottoman Turkish
balkan 'chain of wooded mountains'; related
words are also found in other Turkic languages.
The origin of the Turkic word is obscure;
it may be related to Persian bālk 'mud',
and the Turkish suffix an 'swampy forest'
or Persian balā-khāna 'big high house'.
=== Historical names ===
==== Classical antiquity and the early Middle
Ages ====
From classical antiquity through the Middle
Ages, the Balkan Mountains were called by
the local Thracian name Haemus. According
to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus
was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment
and the mountain has remained with his name.
A reverse name scheme has also been suggested.
D. Dechev considers that Haemus (Αἷμος)
is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, 'mountain
ridge'. A third possibility is that "Haemus"
(Αἵμος) derives from the Greek word
"haema" (αἷμα) meaning 'blood'. The myth
relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan
Typhon. Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder
bolt and Typhon's blood fell on the mountains,
from which they got their name.
==== Late Middle Ages and Ottoman period ====
The earliest mention of the name appears in
an early 14th-century Arab map, in which the
Haemus mountains are referred to as Balkan.
The first attested time the name "Balkan"
was used in the West for the mountain range
in Bulgaria was in a letter sent in 1490 to
Pope Innocent VIII by Buonaccorsi Callimaco,
an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat.
The Ottomans first mention it in a document
dated from 1565. There has been no other documented
usage of the word to refer to the region before
that, although other Turkic tribes had already
settled in or were passing through the Peninsula.
There is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar
Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria,
however it is only an unscholarly assertion.
The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia
in its general meaning of mountain, as in
Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊,
but especially it was applied to the Haemus
mountain. The name is still preserved in Central
Asia with the Balkan Daglary (Balkan Mountains)
and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. English
traveler John Morritt introduced this term
into the English literature at the end of
the 18th-century, and other authors started
applying the name to the wider area between
the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The concept
of the "Balkans" was created by the German
geographer August Zeune in 1808. During the
1820s, "Balkan became the preferred although
not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among
British travelers... Among Russian travelers
not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan
was the preferred term."
=== Evolution of meaning ===
As time passed, the term gradually acquired
political connotations far from its initial
geographic meaning, arising from political
changes from the late 19th century to the
creation of post–World War I Yugoslavia
(initially the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes). Zeune's intention was to have a
geographical parallel term to the Italic and
Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more.
The gradually acquired political connotations
are newer and, to a large extent, due to oscillating
political circumstances.After the dissolution
of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the
term "Balkans" again acquired a negative meaning,
especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in
casual usage (see Balkanization).
=== Southeast Europe ===
In part due to the historical and political
connotations of the term "Balkans", especially
since the military conflicts of the 1990s,
the term "Southeast Europe" is becoming increasingly
popular even though it literally refers to
a much larger area and thus is less precise.
A European Union initiative of 1999 is called
the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe,
and the online newspaper Balkan Times renamed
itself Southeast European Times in 2003.
=== Current ===
In the languages of the region, the peninsula
is known as:
Slavic languages:
Bulgarian: Балкански полуостров,
transliterated: Balkanski poluostrov
Macedonian: Балкански Полуостров,
transliterated: Balkanski Poluostrov
Serbian: Балканско полуострво
/ Balkansko poluostrvo
Croatian: Balkanski poluotok
Slovene: Balkanski polotok
Romance languages:
Romanian: Peninsula Balcanică
Turkic Languages:
Turkish: Balkan Yarımadası or Balkanlar
Other languages:
Albanian: Gadishulli Ballkanik and Siujdhesa
e Ballkanit
Greek: Βαλκανική χερσόνησος,
transliterated: Valkaniki chersonisos
== 
Definitions and boundaries ==
=== Balkan Peninsula ===
The Balkan Peninsula is bounded by the Adriatic
Sea to the west, the Mediterranean Sea (including
the Ionian and Aegean seas) and the Marmara
Sea to the south and the Black Sea to the
east. Its northern boundary is often given
as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan
Peninsula has a combined area of about 470,000
km2 (181,000 sq mi) (slightly smaller than
Spain). It is more or less identical to the
region known as Southeastern Europe.From 1920
until World War II, Italy included Istria
and some Dalmatian areas (like Zara, today's
Zadar) that are within the general definition
of the Balkan peninsula. The current territory
of Italy includes only the small area around
Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However,
the regions of Trieste and Istria are not
usually considered part of the Balkans by
Italian geographers, due to their definition
of the Balkans that limits its western border
to the Kupa River.Share of land area within
the Balkan Peninsula by country by the Danube-Sava
definition:
Entirely within the Balkan peninsula:
Albania: 28,750 km2 (100% of total land)
Bulgaria : 110,800 km2 (100%)
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 51,180 km2 (100%)
Kosovo*: 10,908 km2 (100%)
Macedonia: 25,710 km2 (100%)
Montenegro: 13,810 km2 (100%)Mostly or partially
within the Balkan peninsula:
Croatia (southern mainland): 26,033 km2 (46%)
Greece (mainland): 104,470 km2 (80%)
Italy (Trieste and Monfalcone): 300 km2 (0.1%)
Romania (mainland Dobruja): 12,000 km2 (5%)
Serbia (southern part excluding Vojvodina,
northern Belgrade) 54,000 km2 (65%)
Slovenia (southwestern part): 5,000 km2 (25%)
Turkey (European part): 23,764 km2 (3%)
=== Balkans ===
The term "the Balkans" is used more generally
for the region; it includes states in the
region, which may extend beyond the peninsula,
and is not defined by the geography of the
peninsula itself.
The Balkans are usually said to comprise Albania,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro,
Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, while Greece
and Turkey are often excluded. Its total area
is usually given as 666,700 square km (257,400
square miles) and the population as 59,297,000
(est. 2002).Italy, although having a small
part of its territory in the Balkan peninsula,
is not included in the term "the Balkans".
The term Southeastern Europe is also used
for the region, with various definitions.
Individual Balkan states are also considered
to be part of other regions, including Southern
Europe and Eastern Europe. Croatia, Romania,
Serbia and Slovenia are also sometimes considered
part of Central Europe. Turkey, often including
its European territory, is also included in
Western or Southwestern Asia.
=== Western Balkans ===
Western Balkans is a neologism coined to refer
to Albania and the territory of the former
Yugoslavia less Slovenia.The institutions
of the European Union have generally used
the term "Western Balkans" to mean the Balkan
area that includes countries that are not
members of the European Union, while others
refer to the geographical aspects.
Each of these countries aims to be part of
the future enlargement of the European Union
and reach democracy and transmission scores
but, until then, they will be strongly connected
with the pre-EU waiting program CEFTA. Croatia,
considered part of the Western Balkans, joined
the EU in July 2013.
== Nature and natural resources ==
Most of the area is covered by mountain ranges
running from the northwest to southeast. The
main ranges are the Balkan mountains, running
from the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria to its
border with Serbia, the Rhodope mountains
in southern Bulgaria and northern Greece,
the Dinaric Alps in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia and Montenegro, the Šar massif which
spreads from Albania to Macedonia, and the
Pindus range, spanning from southern Albania
into central Greece and the Albanian Alps.
The highest mountain of the region is Rila
in Bulgaria, with Musala at 2925 m, Mount
Olympus in Greece, being second at 2917 m
and Vihren in Bulgaria being the third at
2914 m. The karst field or polje is a common
feature of the landscape.
On the Adriatic and Aegean coasts the climate
is Mediterranean, on the Black Sea coast the
climate is humid subtropical and oceanic,
and inland it is humid continental. In the
northern part of the peninsula and on the
mountains, winters are frosty and snowy, while
summers are hot and dry. In the southern part
winters are milder. The humid continental
climate is predominant in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
northern Croatia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia,
northern Montenegro, the interior of Albania
and Serbia, while the other, less common climates,
the humid subtropical and oceanic climates,
are seen on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria
and Balkan Turkey (European Turkey); and the
Mediterranean climate is seen on the coast
of Albania, the coast of Croatia, Greece,
southern Montenegro and the Aegean coast of
Balkan Turkey (Ruropen Turkey).Over the centuries
many woods have been cut down and replaced
with bush. In the southern part and on the
coast there is evergreen vegetation. Inland
there are woods typical of Central Europe
(oak and beech, and in the mountains, spruce,
fir and pine). The tree line in the mountains
lies at the height of 1800–2300 m. The land
provides habitats for numerous endemic species,
including extraordinarily abundant insects
and reptiles that serve as food for a variety
of birds of prey and rare vultures.
The soils are generally poor, except on the
plains, where areas with natural grass, fertile
soils and warm summers provide an opportunity
for tillage. Elsewhere, land cultivation is
mostly unsuccessful because of the mountains,
hot summers and poor soils, although certain
cultures such as olive and grape flourish.
Resources of energy are scarce, except in
the territory of Kosovo, where considerable
coal, lead, zinc, chromium and silver deposits
are located. Other deposits of coal, especially
in Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia, also exist.
Lignite deposits are widespread in Greece.
Petroleum scarce reserves exist in Greece,
Serbia and Albania. Natural gas deposits are
scarce. Hydropower is in wide use, from over
1,000 dams. The often relentless bora wind
is also being harnessed for power generation.
Metal ores are more usual than other raw materials.
Iron ore is rare, but in some countries there
is a considerable amount of copper, zinc,
tin, chromite, manganese, magnesite and bauxite.
Some metals are exported.
== History and geopolitical significance ==
=== 
Antiquity ===
The Balkan region was the first area in Europe
to experience the arrival of farming cultures
in the Neolithic era. The Balkans have been
inhabited since the Paleolithic and are the
route by which farming from the Middle East
spread to Europe during the Neolithic (7th
millennium BC). The practices of growing grain
and raising livestock arrived in the Balkans
from the Fertile Crescent by way of Anatolia
and spread west and north into Central Europe,
particularly through Pannonia. Two early culture-complexes
have developed in the region, Starčevo culture
and Vinča culture. The Balkans are also the
location of the first advanced civilizations.
Vinča culture developed a form of proto-writing
before the Sumerians and Minoans, known as
the Old European script, while the bulk of
the symbols had been created in the period
between 4500 and 4000 BC, with the ones on
the Tărtăria clay tablets even dating back
to around 5300 BC.The identity of the Balkans
is dominated by its geographical position;
historically the area was known as a crossroads
of cultures. It has been a juncture between
the Latin and Greek bodies of the Roman Empire,
the destination of a massive influx of pagan
Bulgars and Slavs, an area where Orthodox
and Catholic Christianity met, as well as
the meeting point between Islam and Christianity.
In pre-classical and classical antiquity,
this region was home to Greeks, Illyrians,
Paeonians, Thracians, Dacians, and other ancient
groups. The Achaemenid Persian Empire incorporated
parts of the Balkans comprising Macedonia,
Thrace, Bulgaria, and the Black Sea coastal
region of Romania between the late 6th and
the first half of the 5th-century BC into
its territories. Later the Roman Empire conquered
most of the region and spread Roman culture
and the Latin language, but significant parts
still remained under classical Greek influence.
The Romans considered the Rhodope Mountains
to be the northern limit of the Peninsula
of Haemus and the same limit applied approximately
to the border between Greek and Latin use
in the region (later called the Jireček Line).
The Bulgars and Slavs arrived in the 6th-century
and began assimilating and displacing already-assimilated
(through Romanization and Hellenization) older
inhabitants of the northern and central Balkans,
forming the Bulgarian Empire. During the Middle
Ages, the Balkans became the stage for a series
of wars between the Byzantine Roman and the
Bulgarian Empires.
=== Early modern period ===
By the end of the 16th-century, the Ottoman
Empire had become the controlling force in
the region after expanding from Anatolia through
Thrace to the Balkans. Many people in the
Balkans place their greatest folk heroes in
the era of either the onslaught or the retreat
of the Ottoman Empire. As examples, for Greeks,
Constantine XI Palaiologos and Kolokotronis;
and for Serbs, Miloš Obilić and Tzar Lazar;
for Montenegrins, Đurađ I Balšić and Ivan
Crnojević; for Albanians, George Kastrioti
Skanderbeg; for ethnic Macedonians, Nikola
Karev and Goce Delčev; for Bulgarians, Vasil
Levski, Georgi Sava Rakovski and Hristo Botev
and for Croats, Nikola Šubić Zrinjski.
In the past several centuries, because of
the frequent Ottoman wars in Europe fought
in and around the Balkans and the comparative
Ottoman isolation from the mainstream of economic
advance (reflecting the shift of Europe's
commercial and political centre of gravity
towards the Atlantic), the Balkans has been
the least developed part of Europe. According
to Halil İnalcık, "The population of the
Balkans, according to one estimate, fell from
a high of 8 million in the late 16th-century
to only 3 million by the mid-eighteenth. This
estimate is based on Ottoman documentary evidence."Most
of the Balkan nation-states emerged during
the 19th and early 20th centuries as they
gained independence from the Ottoman Empire
or the Austro-Hungarian empire: Greece in
1821, Serbia, Montenegro in 1878, Romania
in 1881, Bulgaria in 1908 and Albania in 1912.
=== Recent history ===
==== World Wars ====
In 1912–1913 the First Balkan War broke
out when the nation-states of Bulgaria, Serbia,
Greece and Montenegro united in an alliance
against the Ottoman Empire. As a result of
the war, almost all remaining European territories
of the Ottoman Empire were captured and partitioned
among the allies. Ensuing events also led
to the creation of an independent Albanian
state. Bulgaria insisted on its status quo
territorial integrity, divided and shared
by the Great Powers next to the Russo-Turkish
War (1877–78) in other boundaries and on
the pre-war Bulgarian-Serbian agreement. Bulgaria
was provoked by the backstage deals between
its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on the
allocation of the spoils at the end of the
First Balkan War. At the time, Bulgaria was
fighting at the main Thracian Front. Bulgaria
marks the beginning of Second Balkan War when
it attacked them. The Serbs and the Greeks
repulsed single attacks, but when the Greek
army invaded Bulgaria together with an unprovoked
Romanian intervention in the back, Bulgaria
collapsed. The Ottoman Empire used the opportunity
to recapture Eastern Thrace, establishing
its new western borders that still stand today
as part of modern Turkey.
The First World War was sparked in the Balkans
in 1914 when members of Mlada Bosna, a revolutionary
organization with predominantly Serbian and
pro-Yugoslav members, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian
heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in
Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital, Sarajevo.
That caused a war between the two countries
which—through the existing chains of alliances—led
to the First World War. The Ottoman Empire
soon joined the Central Powers becoming one
of the three empires participating in that
alliance. The next year Bulgaria joined the
Central Powers attacking Serbia, which was
successfully fighting Austro-Hungary to the
north for a year. That led to Serbia's defeat
and the intervention of the Entente in the
Balkans which sent an expeditionary force
to establish a new front, the third one of
that war, which soon also became static. The
participation of Greece in the war three years
later, in 1918, on the part of the Entente
finally altered the balance between the opponents
leading to the collapse of the common German-Bulgarian
front there, which caused the exit of Bulgaria
from the war, and in turn the collapse of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ending the First
World War.With the start of the Second World
War, all Balkan countries, with the exception
of Greece, were allies of Nazi Germany, having
bilateral military agreements or being part
of the Axis Pact. Fascist Italy expanded the
war in the Balkans by using its protectorate
Albania to invade Greece. After repelling
the attack, the Greeks counterattacked, invading
Italy-held Albania and causing Nazi Germany's
intervention in the Balkans to help its ally.
Days before the German invasion, a successful
coup d'état in Belgrade by neutral military
personnel seized power.Although the new government
reaffirmed Serbia's intentions to fulfill
its obligations as member of the Axis, Germany,
with Bulgaria, invaded both Greece and Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia immediately disintegrated when
those loyal to the Serbian King and the Croatian
units mutinied. Greece resisted, but, after
two months of fighting, collapsed and was
occupied. The two countries were partitioned
between the three Axis allies, Bulgaria, Germany
and Italy, and the Independent State of Croatia,
a puppet state of Italy and Germany.
During the occupation the population suffered
considerable hardship due to repression and
starvation, to which the population reacted
by creating a mass resistance movement. Together
with the early and extremely heavy winter
of that year (which caused hundreds of thousands
deaths among the poorly fed population), the
German invasion had disastrous effects in
the timetable of the planned invasion in Russia
causing a significant delay, which had major
consequences during the course of the war.Finally,
at the end of 1944, the Soviets entered Romania
and Bulgaria forcing the Germans out of the
Balkans. They left behind a region largely
ruined as a result of wartime exploitation.
==== Cold War ====
During the Cold War, most of the countries
on the Balkans were governed by communist
governments. Greece became the first battleground
of the emerging Cold War. The Truman Doctrine
was the US response to the civil war, which
raged from 1944 to 1949. This civil war, unleashed
by the Communist Party of Greece, backed by
communist volunteers from neighboring countries
(Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia), led to
massive American assistance for the non-communist
Greek government. With this backing, Greece
managed to defeat the partisans and, ultimately,
remained the only non-communist country in
the region.
However, despite being under communist governments,
Yugoslavia (1948) and Albania (1961) fell
out with the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia, led
by Marshal Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980),
first propped up then rejected the idea of
merging with Bulgaria and instead sought closer
relations with the West, later even spearheaded,
together with India and Egypt the Non-Aligned
Movement. Albania on the other hand gravitated
toward Communist China, later adopting an
isolationist position.
As the only non-communist countries, Greece
and Turkey were (and still are) part of NATO
composing the southeastern wing of the alliance.
==== Post–Cold War ====
In the 1990s, the transition of the regions'
ex-Soviet bloc countries towards democratic
free-market societies went peacefully with
the exception of Yugoslavia. Wars between
the former Yugoslav republics broke out after
Slovenia and Croatia held free elections and
their people voted for independence on their
respective countries' referenda. Serbia in
turn declared the dissolution of the union
as unconstitutional and the Yugoslavian army
unsuccessfully tried to maintain status quo.
Slovenia and Croatia declared independence
on 25 June 1991, followed by the Ten-Day War
in Slovenia. Till October 1991, the Army withdrew
from Slovenia, and in Croatia, the Croatian
War of Independence would continue until 1995.
In the ensuing 10 years armed confrontation,
gradually all the other Republics declared
independence, with Bosnia being the most affected
by the fighting. The long lasting wars resulted
in a United Nations intervention and NATO
ground and air forces took action against
Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Serbia.
From the dissolution of Yugoslavia six republics
achieved international recognition as sovereign
republics, but these are traditionally included
in Balkans: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.
In 2008, while under UN administration, Kosovo
declared independence (according to the official
Serbian policy, Kosovo is still an internal
autonomous region). In July 2010, the International
Court of Justice, ruled that the declaration
of independence was legal. Most UN member
states recognise Kosovo. After the end of
the wars a revolution broke in Serbia and
Slobodan Milošević, the Serbian communist
leader (elected president between 1989 and
2000), was overthrown and handed for trial
to the International Criminal Tribunal for
crimes against the International Humanitarian
Law during the Yugoslav wars. Milošević
died of a heart attack in 2006 before a verdict
could have been released. Ιn 2001 an Albanian
uprising in Macedonia forced the country to
give local autonomy to the ethnic Albanians
in the areas where they predominate.
With the dissolution of Yugoslavia an issue
emerged over the name under which the former
(federated) republic of Macedonia would internationally
be recognized, between the new country and
Greece. Being the Macedonian part of Yugoslavia
(see Vardar Macedonia), the federated Republic
under the Yugoslav identity had the name Republic
of Macedonia on which it declared its sovereignty
in 1991. Greece, having a large region (see
Macedonia) also under the same name opposed
to the usage of this name as an indication
of a nationality. The issue is currently under
negotiations after a UN initiation.
Balkan countries control the direct land routes
between Western Europe and South West Asia
(Asia Minor and the Middle East). Since 2000,
all Balkan countries are friendly towards
the EU and the USA.Greece has been the member
of the European Union since 1981 while Slovenia
is a member since 2004, Bulgaria and Romania
are members since 2007, and Croatia is a member
since 2013. In 2005, the European Union decided
to start accession negotiations with candidate
countries; Turkey, and Macedonia were accepted
as candidates for EU membership. In 2012,
Montenegro started accession negotiations
with the EU. In 2014, Albania is an official
candidate for accession to the EU. In 2015,
Serbia is expected to start accession negotiations
with the EU.
Greece and Turkey have been NATO members since
1952. In March 2004, Bulgaria, Romania and
Slovenia have become members of NATO. As of
April 2009, Albania and Croatia are members
of NATO. Montenegro joined in June 2017.All
other countries have expressed a desire to
join the EU or NATO at some point in the future.
== Politics and economy ==
Currently all of the states are republics,
but until World War II all countries were
monarchies. Most of the republics are parliamentary,
excluding Romania and Bosnia which are semi-presidential.
All the states have open market economies,
most of which are in the upper-middle income
range ($4,000 – $12,000 p.c.), except Croatia,
Romania, Greece and Slovenia that have high
income economies (over $12,000 p.c.), and
are classified with very high HDI in contrast
to the remaining states which are classified
with high HDI. The states from the former
Eastern Bloc that formerly had planned economy
system and Turkey mark gradual economic growth
each year, only the economy of Greece drops
for 2012 and meanwhile it was expected to
grow in 2013. The Gross domestic product (Purchasing
power parity) per capita is highest in Slovenia
(over $36,000), followed by Greece (over $29,000),
Croatia and Romania (over $25,000), Turkey,
Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia ($10,000
– $15,000) and Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo
(below $10,000). The Gini coefficient, which
indicates the level of difference by monetary
welfare of the layers, is on the second level
at the highest monetary equality in Albania,
Bulgaria and Serbia, on the third level in
Greece, Montenegro and Romania, on the fourth
level in Macedonia, on the fifth level in
Turkey, and the most unequal by Gini coefficient
is Bosnia at the eighth level which is the
penultimate level and one of the highest in
the world. The unemployment is lowest in Romania
(below 10%), followed by Bulgaria, Turkey,
Albania (10 – 15%), Greece (15 – 20%),
Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia (20 – 30%), Macedonia
(over 30%) and Kosovo (over 40%).
On political, social and economic criteria
the divisions are as follows:
Territories members of the European Union:
Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Romania and Slovenia
Territories currently in negotiation process
for EU membership: Montenegro, Serbia and
Turkey
Territories official candidates for EU membership:
Albania and Macedonia
Territories with "potential candidates" status
for EU membership: Bosnia and Herzegovina
and Kosovo
On border control and trade criteria the divisions
are as follows:
Territories in the Schengen Area: Greece and
Slovenia
Territories that are legally bound to join
the Schengen Area: Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania
Territories in a customs union with the EU:
Turkey
Territories members of the Central European
Free Trade Agreement: Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro
and Serbia.
On currency criteria the divisions are as
follows:
Territories members of the Eurozone: Greece
and Slovenia
Territories using the Euro without authorization
by the EU: Kosovo and Montenegro
Territories using national currencies and
are candidates for the Eurozone: Bulgaria
(lev), Croatia (kuna), Romania (leu)
Territories using national currencies: Albania
(lek), Bosnia and Herzegovina (convertible
mark), Macedonia (denar), Serbia (dinar) and
Turkey (lira).
On military criteria the divisions are as
follows:
Member territories of NATO: Albania, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia
and Turkey
Member territories of the Partnership for
Peace with Individual Partnership Action Plan
and Membership Action Plan for joining NATO:
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia
Member territories of the Partnership for
Peace: Serbia
On the recent political, social and economic
criteria there are two groups of countries:
Former communist territories: Albania, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo,
Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and
Slovenia
Territories with capitalist past: Greece and
Turkey
During the Cold War the Balkans were disputed
between the two blocks. Greece and Turkey
were members of NATO, Bulgaria and Romania
of the Warsaw Pact, while Yugoslavia was proponent
of a third way and was a founding member of
the Non-Aligned Movement. After the dissolution
of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
kept an observer status within the organisation.
=== Regional organizations ===
See also the Black Sea regional organizations
== Statistics ==
== Demographics ==
The region is inhabited by Albanians, Aromanians,
Bulgarians, Bosniaks, Croats, Gorani, Greeks,
Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, Slovenes,
Romanians, Turks, and other ethnic groups
which present minorities in certain countries
like the Romani and Ashkali.
=== Religion ===
The region is a meeting point of Orthodox
Christianity, Islam and Roman Catholic Christianity.
Eastern Orthodoxy is the majority religion
in both the Balkan peninsula and the Balkan
region. A variety of different traditions
of each faith are practiced, with each of
the Eastern Orthodox countries having its
own national church. A part of the population
in the Balkans defines itself as irreligious.
The Jewish communities of the Balkans were
some of the oldest in Europe and date back
to ancient times. These communities were Sephardi
Jews, except in Transylvania, Croatia and
Slovenia, where the Jewish communities were
mainly Ashkenazi Jews. In Bosnia and Herzegovina,
the small and close-knit Jewish community
is 90% Sephardic, and Ladino is still spoken
among the elderly. The Sephardi Jewish cemetery
in Sarajevo has tombstones of a unique shape
and inscribed in ancient Ladino. Sephardi
Jews used to have a large presence in the
city of Thessaloniki, and by 1900, some 80,000,
or more than half of the population, were
Jews. The Jewish communities in the Balkans
suffered immensely during World War II, and
the vast majority were killed during the Holocaust.
An exception were the Bulgarian Jews, most
of whom were saved by Boris III of Bulgaria,
who resisted Adolf Hitler, opposing their
deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Almost
all of the few survivors have emigrated to
the (then) newly founded state of Israel and
elsewhere. Almost no Balkan country today
has a significant Jewish minority.
=== Languages ===
The Balkan region today is a very diverse
ethno-linguistic region, being home to multiple
Slavic and Romance languages, as well as Albanian,
Greek, Turkish, and others. Romani is spoken
by a large portion of the Romanis living throughout
the Balkan countries. Throughout history many
other ethnic groups with their own languages
lived in the area, among them Thracians, Illyrians,
Romans, Celts and various Germanic tribes.
All of the aforementioned languages from the
present and from the past belong to the wider
Indo-European language family, with the exception
of the Turkic languages (e.g., Turkish and
Gagauz).
=== Urbanization ===
Most of the states in the Balkans are predominantly
urbanized, with the lowest number of urban
population as % of the total population found
in Kosovo at under 40%, Bosnia and Herzegovina
at 40% and Slovenia at 50%.
A list of largest cities:
* Only the European part of Istanbul is a
part of the Balkans. It is home to two thirds
of the city's 14,025,646 inhabitants.
== Time zones ==
The time zones in the Balkans are defined
as the following:
Territories in the time zone of UTC+01:00:
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,
Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia
Territories in the time zone of UTC+02:00:
Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Turkey
== 
Culture ==
Cuisine of the Balkans
Balkan music
== See also ==
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Gray, Colin S. (1999). Geopolitics, Geography
and Strategy. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.
ISBN 978-0-7146-8053-8.
Banac, Ivo (October 1992). "Historiography
of the Countries of Eastern Europe: Yugoslavia".
American Historical Review. University of
Chicago Press. 97 (4): 1084–1104. doi:10.2307/2165494.
JSTOR 2165494.
Banac, Ivo (1984). The National Question in
Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-9493-2.
Goldstein, Ivo (1999). Croatia: A History.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen's University
Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-2017-2.
Carter, Francis W., ed. An Historical Geography
of the Balkans Academic Press, 1977.
Dvornik, Francis. The Slavs in European History
and Civilization Rutgers University Press,
1962.
Fine, John V. A., Jr. The Early Medieval Balkans:
A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late
Twelfth Century [1983]; The Late Medieval
Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth
Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, [1987].
Jelavich, Barbara (1983a). History of the
Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521274586.
Jelavich, Barbara (1983b). History of the
Balkans: Twentieth Century. 2. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 9780521274593.
Jelavich, Charles and Jelavich, Barbara, eds.
(1963). The Balkans in Transition: Essays
on the Development of Balkan Life and Politics
Since the Eighteenth Century. University of
California Press.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors
list (link)
Kitsikis, Dimitri (2008). La montée du national-bolchevisme
dans les Balkans. Le retour à la Serbie de
1830. Paris: Avatar.
Lampe, John R., and Marvin R. Jackson; Balkan
Economic History, 1550–1950: From Imperial
Borderlands to Developing Nations Indiana
University Press, 1982
Király, Béla K., ed. East Central European
Society in the Era of Revolutions, 1775–1856.
1984
Komlos, John (15 October 1990). Economic Development
in the Habsburg Monarchy and in the Successor
States. East European Monographs No. 28. East
European Monographs. ISBN 978-0-88033-177-7.
Mazower, Mark (2000). The Balkans: A Short
History. Modern Library Chronicles. New York:
Random House. ISBN 0-679-64087-8.
Schreiber, Gerhard; Stegemann, Bernd; Vogel,
Detlef (1995). The Mediterranean, south-east
Europe, and north Africa, 1939–1941. Germany
and the 2nd World War. Volume III. Clarendon
Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822884-4.
Stavrianos, L. S. (1 May 2000) [1958]. The
Balkans since 1453. with Traian Stoianovich.
New York: NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-9766-2.
online free to borrow
Stoianovich, Traian (September 1994). Balkan
Worlds: The First and Last Europe. Sources
and Studies in World History. New York: M.E.
Sharpe. ISBN 978-1-56324-032-4.
Zametica, John. Folly and malice: the Habsburg
empire, the Balkans and the start of World
War One (London: Shepheard–Walwyn, 2017).
416pp.
== External links ==
Balkan Insight – Analysis from Balkans
Balkanalysis, in-depth research on Balkan
geopolitics
Western Balkans Photo impression
Shared Pasts in Central and Southeast Europe,
17th–21st Centuries. Eds. G.Demeter, P.
Peykovska. 2015
