Name Republic of Montenegro
Local name Republika Crna Gora
Capital Podgorica
Area 13 812 km²
Religions Serbian Orthodox, Muslim, Roman Catholic
Population 620 000 Montenegrins

First State formed in XIth century under the name of Zeta, annexed by the Nemanjic's medieval Serbia, then autonomous principality inside the Othoman Empire during centuries. Its independence was recognized internationally by the Congress of Berlin in 1878, proclaimed kingdom in 1910. Montenegro fought with the Allied during the First World War but was integrated, under the pressure of the Serbs, after a disputed vote of Great Skoupchtina on November 24, 1918 into the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians and Slovenians, which became in 1929 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was one of the federate republics of the socialist federal Republic of Yugoslavia at the Communist time, then under the regime of Milošević who preserved only two constitutive republics under the name of Yugoslavia, then after 2003 under the name of Serbia-and-Montenegro.

In 2002, under the pressure of the European Union, Serbia and Montenegro agreed on a reorganized union for at least three years. This compromise, known as the “Agreement of Belgrade”, envisaged, among other changes, to give up definitively the name of Yugoslavia for that of Serbia-and-Montenegro. At the end of this moratory period, a referendum on the independence of Montenegro was organized on May 21, 2006. 55,5 % of the votes went on independence (motivated by the desire of a faster integration into the European Union and NATO), this event thus announcing the final dissolution of what remained of the old Yugoslavia.


The muntains of Montenegro are among the most accidented parts of Europe. The territory tops at Bobotov Kuk, in the Durmitor mounts, at an altitude of 2 522 m.

The bay of Kotor if often mentioned as the southernmost european fjord, even if it is not exactly a fjord, but rather a deep water canyon. It is composed of several inner gulfs connected each other by deep passes, forming one of the best natural harbours of Europe. On the part close to the see is the gulf of Herceg Novi (Castelnuovo), which keeps the main entrance of the bay. The other inner gulfs are those of Risan, northwest, and the one of Kotor, southeast.

Ivo Andrić, who lived in Herceg Novi, has written beautiful lines about Kotor.