'Belgrade' ( ) 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.
[2][3] 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.
[4]
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),
[ 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.[5] Its territory is divided into 17 municipalities, each having its own local council.[6] 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.[7] Belgrade is the central economic hub of Serbia, and the capital of Serbian culture, education and science.
Geography
Satellite view of Belgrade
Belgrade lies above sea level and is located at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers, at coordinates 44°49'14" North, 20°27'44" East. The historical core of Belgrade (today's Kalemegdan) is on the right bank of the rivers. From the 19th century, the city has been expanding to the south and east, and after World War II, New Belgrade was built on the Sava's left bank, merging Belgrade with Zemun. Smaller, chiefly residential communities across the Danube, like Krnjača and Ovča, also merged with the city. The city has an urban area of , while together with its metropolitan area it covers . Throughout history, Belgrade has been a major crossroad between the West and the Orient.[1]
On the right bank of the Sava, central Belgrade has hilly terrain, while the highest point of Belgrade proper is Torlak hill at . The mountains of Avala () and Kosmaj () lie south of the city.[9] Across the Sava and Danube, the land is mostly flat, consisting of alluvial plains and loessial plateaus.
Climate
Belgrade has a moderate continental climate. The year-round average temperature is , while the hottest month is July, with an average temperature of . 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.[10] The highest ever recorded temperature in Belgrade was +43,1°C [11], while on the other end, the lowest temperature was -21 °C [12].
History
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. [13][14] 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. Four hundred years later in 395 AD, the site passed to the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.[15]
Middle Ages
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.[16] 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.[17]
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.[18][19] 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.
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.[20] 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.[21]
Turkish conquest
Belgrade in the 16th century
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.[22] In 1594, a major Serb rebellion was crushed by the Turks, who burned churches and the relics of Saint Sava on the Vračar plateau; more recently, the Temple of Saint Sava was built to commemorate this event.[23]
Occupied by Austria three times (1688–1690, 1717–1739, 1789–1791), Belgrade was quickly recaptured and substantially raized each time by the Ottomans.
During the First Serbian Uprising, the Serbian rebels held the city from 8 January 1806 until 1813, when it was retaken by the Ottomans.[25] After the Second Serbian Uprising in 1817, Serbia reached a degree of autonomy, and was fully recognized by the Porte in 1830.[26] In 1841, Prince Mihailo Obrenović moved the capital from Kragujevac to Belgrade.[27]
After independence
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.[28][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][32]
Knez Mihailova street at the beginning of the 20th century
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.[33]
World War I
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 monitors shelled Belgrade on 29 July 1914, and it was taken by the Austro-Hungarian Army under General Oskar Potiorek on 30 November. On 15 December, it was re-taken by Serbian troops under Marshal Radomir Putnik. After a prolonged battle which destroyed much of the city, between 6 October and 9 October 1915, Belgrade fell to German and Austro-Hungarian troops commanded by Field Marshal August von Mackensen on 9 October 1915. The city was liberated by Serbian and French troops on 5 November 1918, under the command of Marshal Louis Franchet d'Espérey of France and Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia.
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.[34]
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.
World War II
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 bo
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