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
Bosnian language : "Balkanski poluotok"
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 : 111,993 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): 24,013 km2 (44%)
Greece (mainland): 103,410 km2 (80%)
Italy (Trieste and Monfalcone): 200 km2 (0.05%)
Romania (mainland Dobruja): 11,000 km2 (3%)
Serbia (Central Serbia) 51,000 km2 (61%)
Slovenia (southwestern part): 5,000 km2 (25%)
Turkey (European part): 22,764 km2 (2%)
=== 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 59,986,666 (est. 2017).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 (European
Turkey).Over the centuries forests 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
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).
However large spaces south of Jireček Line
were and are inhabited by Vlachs (Aromanians),
the Romance-speaking heirs of Roman Empire.
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 15,986,992
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, Serbia and
Slovenia
Territories in the time zone of UTC+02:00:
Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Turkey
== 
Culture ==
Cuisine of the Balkans
Balkan music
== 
See also ==
== Notes
