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The capital and largest city of Serbia, in the north-central part of the country at the confluence of the Danube and Sava Rivers. Founded in the third century B.C., Belgrade became the capital of the kingdom of Serbia in the 19th century and the capital of Yugoslavia after World War I. Population: 1,120,000.
For more information on Belgrade, visit Britannica.com.
Strategically situated athwart land and river routes between Central Europe and the Balkans, Belgrade has been the target of numerous conquerors throughout history. The city grew around fortresses built by the Celts (3d cent. B.C.), Illyrians, and Romans. Under the name of Singidinum it served as the harbor for much of Rome's Danubian fleet. Captured by the Huns, Goths, Sarmathians, and Gepids, who destroyed its forts, the city was retaken by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the 6th cent. A.D. It was held in the late 8th cent. by the Franks and from the 9th to 11th cent. by the Bulgars, who refortified it and named it Beligrad (“white fortress”). It was then ruled again by Byzantium before becoming the capital of Serbia in the 12th cent. Before it fell to the Ottoman sultan Sulayman I in 1521, it was under Hungarian control.
The Ottoman Turks made Belgrade their chief strategic fortress in Europe. Although the Austrians stormed it in 1688, 1717, and 1789, they were able to hold onto it only from the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718) until the Treaty of Belgrade (1739). Liberated by Karageorge and Miloš Obrenović during the Serbian uprising of 1806, Belgrade was recaptured by the Turks in 1813. The Turks largely left Serbia in 1815 but kept a garrison in the Belgrade fortress until 1867.
Belgrade became the capital of the Kingdom of Serbia in 1882. Occupied by Austrian troops during World War I, the city was made the capital of the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia from 1929) after the war. During World War II, Belgrade suffered much damage and extreme hardship under the German occupation. It was liberated by Yugoslav partisans, with Soviet aid, in 1944. After the disintegration of the Yugoslav federation in the early 1990s, Belgrade remained the capital of a much smaller Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro only, until that nation was reconstituted (2003–6) as Serbia and Montenegro. The city was a target of NATO bombers during the Kosovo crisis (1999).
Belgrade is noted for its fine parks, palaces, museums, and churches. The former Kalemegdan citadel is now a military museum. The 16th-century Barjak Mosque was built by Sulayman I. The city is the home of the Serbian Academy of Sciences, a university (founded 1863), a Roman Catholic archbishop, and an Orthodox Eastern patriarch.
Capital of the former Yugoslavia and of the Yugoslavian
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Local Time: Jul 21, 2:06 AM
| City of
Belgrade Град Београд |
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| Coordinates: | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Serbia | ||
| District | City of Belgrade | ||
| Municipalities | 17 | ||
| Founded | 269 B.C. | ||
| Government | |||
| - Mayor | Speaker Zoran Alimpić (acting) (DS) | ||
| - Ruling parties | DS/DSS/G17+ | ||
| Area | |||
| - City | km² ( sq mi) | ||
| - Urban | km² ( sq mi) | ||
| Elevation [2] | m ( ft) | ||
| Population (2002)[1] | |||
| - City | |||
| - Density | /km² (/sq mi) | ||
| - Urban | |||
| - Urban Density | /km² (/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | CET ([[UTC+1]]) | ||
| - Summer (DST) | CEST ([[UTC+2]]) | ||
| Postal code | 11000 | ||
| Area code(s) | (+381) 11 | ||
| Car plates | BG | ||
| Website: www.beograd.org.yu | |||
Belgrade (Serbian: Београд or Beograd 
listen?) is the capital and largest city of
Serbia. In 4800 BC, the prehistoric
Starčevo culture emerged in the Belgrade area, later succeeded by the Vinča culture. The site of the city was settled in the third century BC by the Celts, before becoming the Roman settlement of Singidunum.[3][4] The Slavic name Beligrad (a form of Beograd, meaning White City) was first recorded in
878 AD. From the 9th to 16th centuries, it shifted between Byzantine, Frankish, Bulgarian, Hungarian and
Serbian rulership, until it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1521 and became the seat of the Pashaluk of
Belgrade. Thrice occupied by the Habsburg Empire between 17th-18th centuries,
in 1841 (after its liberation from the Ottomans), Belgrade became the capital of
the Principality of Serbia, which was renamed the Kingdom of Serbia in 1882. Belgrade was also the capital of several incarnations of Yugoslavia from 1918 until 2006.[5]
The city lies at the confluence of the Sava and Danube Rivers in north central Serbia, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkan Peninsula. With a population of 1,576,124 (2002),[1] Belgrade is the largest city on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and the fourth largest in Southeastern Europe, behind Istanbul, Athens and Bucharest.
Belgrade has the status of a separate territorial unit in Serbia, with its own autonomous city government.[6] Its territory is divided into 17 municipalities, each having its own local council.[7] It covers 3.6% of the territory of Serbia, and 21% of the Serbian population (excluding that of the Kosovo province) lives in the city.[8] Belgrade is the central economic hub of Serbia, and the capital of Serbian culture, education and science.
Belgrade lies metres ( ft) above sea level and is located at the
confluence of the Danube and
On the right bank of the Sava, central Belgrade has hilly terrain, while the highest point of Belgrade proper is Torlak hill at m ( ft). The mountains of Avala ( m ( ft)) and Kosmaj ( m ( ft)) lie south of the city.[10] Across the Sava and Danube, the land is mostly flat, consisting of alluvial plains and loessial plateaus.
| Climate chart for Belgrade | |||||||||||
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| temperatures in
°C • precipitation totals in mm source: Climate-Charts.com |
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Belgrade has a moderate continental climate. The year-round average temperature is + °C ( °F), while the hottest month is July, with an average temperature of + °C ( °F). There are, on average, 31 days a year when the temperature is above 30 °C, and 95 days when the temperature is above 25 °C. Belgrade receives about 700 millimetres (27.56 in) of precipitation a year. The average annual number of sunny hours is 2,096. The sunniest months are July and August, with an average of about 10 sunny hours a day, while December and January are the gloomiest, with an average of 2–2.3 sunny hours a day.[11] The highest ever recorded temperature in Belgrade was +43,1°C,[12] while on the other end, the lowest temperature was -21 °C.[13]
The Neolithic Starčevo and Vinča cultures existed in or near Belgrade and dominated the Balkans (as well as parts of Central Europe and Asia Minor) about 7,000 years ago.[14][3] Settled in the third century BC by a Celtic tribe, the Scordisci, the city's first recorded name was Singidūn, before becoming the Roman settlement of Singidunum in the first century AD. In the mid 2nd century, the city was proclaimed a municipium by the Roman authorities, evolving into a full fledged colonia (highest class Roman city) by the end of the century. Two hundred years later in 395 AD, the site passed to the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.[4]
Singidunum was occupied and often ravaged by successive invasions of Huns, Sarmatians, Ostrogoths and Avars before the arrival of the Slavs around 630 AD. The first record of the Slavic name Beograd dates to 878, during the rule of the First Bulgarian Empire. For about four centuries, the city remained a battleground between the Byzantine Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary and the First Bulgarian Empire.[15] It passed to Serbian rule in 1284, as part of the Kingdom of Syrmia. The first Serbian king to rule over Belgrade was Dragutin (1276–1282), the ruler of the Kingdom of Syrmia, who received it as a gift from his father-in-law, the Hungarian king Ladislav IV.[16]
| "I cometh and found the noblest burgh from ancient times, the grand town of Belgrade, by sorry fate
destroyed and nearly void. Having rebuilt it, I consecrated it to the Holy Mother of God". Despot Stefan Lazarević on Belgrade in 1420 |
Following the Battle of Maritsa in 1371, and the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the Serbian Empire began to crumble as the Ottoman Empire conquered its southern territory.[17][18] The north, however, resisted through the Serbian Despotate, which had Belgrade as its capital. The city flourished under despot Stefan Lazarević, son of the famous Serbian ruler Lazar Hrebeljanović. Lazarević built a castle with a citadel and towers, of which only the Despot's tower and the west wall remain. He also refortified the city's ancient walls, allowing the Despotate to resist the Ottomans for almost 70 years. During this time, Belgrade was a haven for the many Balkan peoples fleeing from Ottoman rule, and is thought to have had a population of some 40–50,000.[16]
In 1427, Stefan's successor Đurađ Branković had to return Belgrade to the Hungarians, and the capital was moved to Smederevo. During his reign, the Ottomans captured most of the Serbian Despotate, reaching Belgrade in 1456.[19] As it presented an obstacle to their further advance into Central Europe, they attacked, starting the famous Siege of Belgrade, where the Christian army under John Hunyadi successfully defended the city from the Ottomans.[20] This battle "decided the fate of Christendom";[21] the noon bell ordered by Pope Callixtus III commemorates the victory throughout the Christian world to this day.[22]
On 28 August 1521, the fort was captured by Suleyman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire,
who subsequently raized most of the city to the ground. Belgrade was made the seat of the district (Sanjak), attracting new inhabitants—Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Ragusan
traders, and others, and there was peace for the next 150 years. The city's population is believed to have reached 100,000 in the
17th century. Turkish rule also introduced Ottoman architecture to Belgrade and
many mosques were built, increasing the city's Oriental
influences.[23] In 1594, a major
Serb rebellion was crushed by the Turks, who burned churches and the
relics of
Occupied by Austria three times (1688–1690, 1717–1739, 1789–1791), Belgrade was quickly recaptured and substantially raized each time by the Ottomans.[23] During this period, the city was affected by the two Great Serbian Migrations, in which hundreds of thousands of Serbs, led by their patriarchs, retreated together with the Austrians into the Habsburg Empire, settling in today's Vojvodina and Slavonia.[25]
During the First Serbian Uprising, the Serbian rebels held the city from 8 January 1806 until 1813, when it was retaken by the Ottomans.[26] After the Second Serbian Uprising in 1817, Serbia reached semi-independence, which was fully recognized by the Porte in 1830.[27] In 1841, Prince Mihailo Obrenović moved the capital from Kragujevac to Belgrade.[28][5]
With the Principality's full independence in 1878, and its transformation into the Kingdom of Serbia in 1882, Belgrade once again became a key city in the Balkans, and developed rapidly.[26][29] Nevertheless, conditions in Serbia as a whole remained those of an overwhelmingly agrarian country, even with the opening of a railway to Niš, Serbia's second city, and in 1900 the capital had only 69,100 inhabitants.[30] Yet by 1905 the population had grown to more than 80,000, and by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, it had surpassed the 100,000 mark, not counting Zemun which then belonged to Austria-Hungary.[31]
The first-ever projection of motion pictures in the Balkans and Central Europe was held in Belgrade in June 1896 by Andre Carr, a representative of the Lumière brothers. He shot the first motion pictures of Belgrade in the next year; however, they have not been preserved.[32]
Gavrilo Princip's assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie,
Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 triggered World War I. Most of the subsequent Balkan offensives occurred
near Belgrade. Austro-Hungarian
After the war, Belgrade became the capital of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. The Kingdom was split into banovinas, and Belgrade, together with Zemun and Pančevo, formed a separate administrative unit.[33]
During this period, the city experienced faster growth and significant modernisation. Belgrade's population grew to 239,000 by 1931 (incorporating the suburb of Zemun, formerly in Austria-Hungary), and 320,000 by 1940. The population growth rate between 1921 and 1948 averaged 4.08% a year.[34] In 1927, Belgrade's first airport opened, and in 1929, its first radio station began broadcasting. The Pančevo Bridge, which crosses the Danube, was opened in 1935.[35]
On 25 March 1941, the government of regent Crown Prince Paul signed the Tripartite Pact, joining the Axis powers in an effort to stay out of the Second World War. This was immediately followed by mass protests in Belgrade and a military coup d'état led by Air Force commander General Dušan Simović, who proclaimed King Peter II to be of age to rule the realm. Consequently, the city was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe on 6 April 1941, and at least 2,500 people were killed.[36] Yugoslavia was then invaded by German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces, and suburbs as far east as Zemun, in the Belgrade metropolitan area, were incorporated into a Nazi puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia. Belgrade became the seat of another puppet government, headed by General Milan Nedić.
During the summer and fall of 1941, in reprisal for guerrilla attacks, Germans carried out several massacres of Belgrade citizens; in particular, members of the Jewish community were subject to mass shootings at the order of General Franz Böhme, the German Military Governor of Serbia. Böhme rigorously enforced the rule that for every German killed, 100 Serbs or Jews would be shot.[37]
Belgrade was bombed by the Allies on 16 April 1944, killing about 1,600 people. Both this and the earlier Luftwaffe bombing fell on the Orthodox Christian Easter. Most of the city remained under German occupation until 20 October 1944, when it was liberated by Communist Yugoslav Partisans and the Red Army. On 29 November 1945, Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaimed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in Belgrade (later to be renamed to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 7 April 1963).
During the post-war period, Belgrade grew rapidly as the capital of the renewed Yugoslavia, developing as a major industrial centre.[29] In 1958, Belgrade's first television station began broadcasting. In 1961, the conference of Non-Aligned Countries was held in Belgrade under Tito's chairmanship. In 1968, major student protests against Tito led to several street clashes between students and the police, ending with Tito's famous saying, "Students are right!". In March 1972, Belgrade was at the centre of the last major outbreak of smallpox in Europe, which, though enforced quarantine and mass vaccination, was contained by late May.[38]
On 9 March 1991, massive demonstrations led by Vuk Drašković were held in the city against Slobodan Milošević.[39] According to various media outlets, there were between 100,000 and 150,000 people on the streets.[40] Two people were killed, 203 injured and 108 arrested during the protests, and later that day tanks were deployed onto the streets to restore order.[41] Further protests were held in Belgrade from November 1996 to February 1997 against the same government after alleged electoral fraud at local elections.[42] These protests brought Zoran Đinđić to power, the first mayor of Belgrade since World War II who did not belong to the League of Communists of Yugoslavia or its later offshoot, the Socialist Party of Serbia.[43]
The NATO bombing during the Kosovo War in 1999 caused substantial damage to the city. Among the sites bombed were the buildings of several ministries, the RTS building, which killed 16 technicians, several hospitals, the Jugoslavija Hotel, the Central Committee building, the Avala TV Tower, and the Chinese embassy.[44]
After the elections in 2000, Belgrade was the site of more major demonstrations, with over half a million people on the streets (800,000 by police estimates, over 1,000,000 according to Misha Glenny). These demonstrations resulted in the ousting of president Milošević.[45][46]
| Name | Notes |
|---|---|
| Singidūn(on) | Named by the Celtic tribe of the Scordisci; dūn(on) means 'lodgment, enclosure, fort'; 279 BC[47] |
| Singidūnum | Romans conquered the city and Romanised the Celtic name |
| Beograd, Београд | Slavic name first mentioned in 878 as Beligrad in the letter of Pope John VIII to Boris of Bulgaria which means "White city / white fortress".[48] |
| Alba Graeca, "Alba" may be derived from the Latin word for "white" | Latin |
| Alba Bulgarica | Latin name during the period of Bulgarian rule over the city[48] |
| Fehérvár | Hungarian translation |
| Weißenburg and Griechisch Weißenburg | German translation. Modern German is Belgrad.[48] |
| Castelbianco | Italian translation[48] |
| Nandoralba | In medieval Hungary up to the 14th century[48] |
| Nándorfehérvár, Landorfehérvár | In medieval Hungary. Modern Hungarian is Belgrád.[48] |
| Veligrad(i)on or Velegrada/Βελέγραδα | Byzantine name. Modern Greek is Veligradi (Βελιγράδι). |
| Darülcihad | Ottoman name, meaning House of the Holy War.[49] Modern Turkish is Belgrat. |
Belgrade is a separate territorial unit in Serbia, with its own autonomous city government.[6] The post of mayor was held by the Democratic Party member Nenad Bogdanović from 2004 and until his death on 27 September 2007. The first mayor to be democratically elected after World War II was Dr. Zoran Đinđić, in 1996. Mayors were also elected democratically prior to the war.
The Civic Assembly of Belgrade has 90 councilors who are elected for four-year terms. The current majority parties are the same as in the Parliament of Serbia (Democratic Party, Democratic Party of Serbia and G17 Plus), and in similar proportions, with the Serbian Radical Party, the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Serbian Strength Movement in opposition.[50]
The city is divided into 17 municipalities, ten with "urban" status, and seven with "suburban" status. While each has its own local council, the suburban municipalities have slightly expanded municipal powers, mainly with regard to construction, town planning and public utility provision.[7]
Most of the municipalities are situated on the southern side of the Danube and
| Name | Area (km²) | Population (1991) | Population (2002) | Urban/Suburban | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barajevo | 213 | 20,846 | 24,641 | Suburban | |
| Čukarica | 156 | 150,257 | 168,508 | Urban | |
| Grocka | 289 | 65,735 | 75,466 | Suburban | |
| Lazarevac | 384 | 57,848 | 58,511 | Suburban | |
| Mladenovac | 339 | 54,517 | 52,490 | Suburban | |
| Novi Beograd | 41 | 218,633 | 217,773 | Urban | |
| Obrenovac | 411 | 67,654 | 70,975 | Suburban | |
| Palilula | 451 | 150,208 | 155,902 | Urban | |
| Rakovica | 31 | 96,300 | 99,000 | Urban | |
| Savski Venac | 14 | 45,961 | 42,505 | Urban | |
| Sopot | 271 | 19,977 | 20,390 | Suburban | |
| Stari Grad | 5 | 68,552 | 55,543 | Urban | |
| Surčin | 285 | Part of Zemun municipality until 2004. |
55,000 (est.) | Suburban | |
| Voždovac | 148 | 156,373 | 151,768 | Urban | |
| Vračar | 3 | 67,438 | 58,386 | Urban | |
| Zemun | 154 | 176,158 | 136,645 | Urban | |
| Zvezdara | 32 | 135,694 | 132,621 | Urban | |
| TOTAL | 3227 | 1,552,151 | 1,576,124 | ||
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Source: Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia[8]
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Belgrade has a population of 1,576,124 as recorded in the 2002 Serbian census. The main ethnic groups were Serbs (1,417,187), Yugoslavs (22,161), Montenegrins (21,190), Roma (19,191), Croats (10,381), Macedonians (8,372), and Muslims by nationality (4,617).[51]
Belgrade is home to many ethnicities from all over the former Yugoslavia, largely because it was the capital.[1] Many people came seeking a better life, or fled as refugees from war and ethnic cleansing.[52] Several thousand Chinese are estimated to live in Belgrade; they began immigrating in the mid-1990s. Blok 70 in New Belgrade is known locally as the Chinese quarter.[53][54] Many Middle Easterners, mainly from Syria, Iran, Jordan and Iraq, arrived in order to pursue their studies during the 1970s and 1980s, and have remained and started families in the city.[55][56] Afghani and Iraqi Kurdish refugees are among some of the recent arrivals from the Middle East. [57]
Although there are several historic religious communities in Belgrade, the religious makeup of the city is relatively homogenous. The Serbian Orthodox community is by far the largest, with 1,429,170 adherents. There are also 20,366 Muslims, 16,305 Roman Catholics, and 3,796 Protestants. There used to be a significant Jewish community, but following the Nazi occupation, and many Jews' subsequent emigration to Israel, their numbers have fallen to a mere 415.[1]
