Municipalities and cities of Serbia

Municipalities and cities form the basic level of local government in Serbia. Serbia is divided into 147 municipalities (opštine) and 27 cities (gradovi).

Of the 147 municipalities:

Of the 27 cities:

A city may and may not be divided into city municipalities (gradske opštine) depending on their size. Currently, there are five cities in Serbia with city municipalities: Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Požarevac and Vranje comprise several city municipalities each, divided into "urban" (in the city proper) and "other" (suburban). There are 28 city municipalities (17 in Belgrade, 5 in Niš, 2 in Novi Sad, 2 in Požarevac and 2 in Vranje).

Like in many other countries, municipalities are the basic entities of local government in Serbia. The head of the municipality is the President of the municipality, while the executive power is held by the Municipal council, and legislative power by the Municipal assembly. Municipal assembly is elected on local elections (held every 4 years), while the President and the Council are elected by the Assembly. Municipalities have their own property (including public service companies) and budget. Only the cities officially have mayors (gradonačelnici), although the municipal presidents are often informally referred to as such.

The territory of a municipality is composed of a town (seat of the municipality) and surrounding villages (e.g. the territory of the Municipality of Čoka is composed of the town of Čoka, which is the seat of the municipality, and surrounding villages). The municipality bears the name of the seat town. Only one municipality (Municipality of Gora) does not share the name with the seat town, as the seat of that municipality is the town of Dragaš. This municipality is located in Kosovo, and thus exists only on paper. The territory of the municipality was merged with part of the Municipality of Prizren in 2000 by UNMIK to form new Municipality of Dragaš. This move is not recognised by Serbian Government (see Municipalities and cities of Kosovo section).

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