Serbia Proper

Central Serbia (Serbian: Централна Србија/Centralna Srbija), also referred to as Serbia proper (Ужа Србија/Uža Srbija), is the part of Serbia lying outside of the provinces of Vojvodina and the disputed territory of Kosovo (Kosovo and Metohija). Central Serbia is a term of convenience, not an administrative division of Serbia as such, and does not have any form of separate administration.

Broadly speaking, Central Serbia is the historical core of modern Serbia, which emerged from the Serbian Revolution (1804–17) and subsequent wars against the Ottoman Empire. In the following century, Serbia gradually expanded south, acquiring South Serbia, Kosovo, Sandžak and Vardar Macedonia, and in 1918 – following the unification and annexation of Montenegro and unification of Austro-Hungarian areas left of the Danube and Sava (Vojvodina) – it merged with other South Slavic territories into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The current borders of Central Serbia were defined after World War II, when Serbia became a republic within SFR Yugoslavia, with Kosovo and Vojvodina as its autonomous provinces.

Central Serbia takes up, roughly, the territory of Serbia between the natural borders consisting of the Danube and Sava (in the north), the Drina (in the west), and the "unnatural" border to the southwest with Montenegro, south with Kosovo and R. Macedonia, and to the east with Bulgaria, with a small strip of the Danube with Romania in the northeast. The Danube and Sava divides central Serbia from the Serbian province of Vojvodina, while the Drina divides Serbia from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Great Morava, a major river, goes through central Serbia. Extensions of three major mountain chains are located within Serbia proper: Dinaric Alps in the west and south, and the Carpathians and Balkan Mountains in the east.

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