Serbia, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central- and Southeastern Europe, covering the southern lowlands of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the west; its border with Albania is disputed. Serbia's capital city, Belgrade, is among the most populous in Southeastern Europe.

After their settlement in the Balkans, Serbs formed a medieval kingdom that evolved into a Serbian Empire, which reached its peak in the 14th century. By the 16th century Serbian lands were conquered and occupied by the Ottomans, at times interrupted by the Habsburgs.

In the early 1800s, the Serbian revolution established the country as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory and pioneered the abolition of feudalism and serfdom in Southeastern Europe. The former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina joined Serbia in 1918. Decimated as a result of World War I, the country united with other South Slavic peoples into a Yugoslav state which would exist in several formations up until 2006, when Serbia once again became independent.

In February 2008, the parliament of Kosovo, Serbia's southern province with an ethnic Albanian majority, declared independence. The response from the international community has been mixed. Serbia regards Kosovo as an autonomous province of Serbia, governed by UNMIK, a UN mission.

Serbia is a member of the United Nations, Council of Europe, BSEC, and will preside over the CEFTA in 2010. Serbia is classified as an emerging and developing economy by the International Monetary Fund and an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank. WTO accession is expected in 2010.[9] Serbia has a high Human Development Index and Freedom House in 2008 listed Serbia as one of few free Balkan states. The country is also an EU membership applicant and a militarily neutral country.

Culture
For centuries straddling the boundaries between East and West, Serbia had been divided among: the Eastern and Western halves of the Roman Empire; between Kingdom of Hungary, Bulgarian Empire, Frankish Kingdom and Byzantium; and between the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, as well as Venice in the south. The result of these overlapping influences are distinct characters and sharp contrasts between various Serbian regions, its north being more tied to Western Europe and south leaning towards the Balkans and the Mediterranean Sea. Despite these confronting influences Serbian identity is quite solid, being described as the "most westernized of the Eastern Orthodox peoples, both socially and culturally" by the Encyclopedia of World History.

The Byzantine Empire's influence on Serbia was profound, through introduction of Greek Orthodoxy from 7th century onwards today Serbian Orthodox Church has an overwhelming influence on the makeup of cultural objects in Serbia. Different influences were also present- chiefly the Ottoman, Hungarian, Austrian and also Venetian, also known as coastal Serbs. Serbs use both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.

The monasteries of Serbia, built largely in the Middle Ages, are one of the most valuable and visible traces of medieval Serbia's association with the Byzantium and the Orthodox World, but also with the Romanic Western Europe that Serbia had close ties with back in Middle Ages. Most of Serbia's queens still remembered today in Serbian history were of foreign origin, including Hélène d'Anjou, a cousin of Charles I of Sicily, Anna Dondolo, daughter of the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, Catherine of Hungary, and Symonide of Byzantium. Serbia has eight cultural sites marked on the UNESCO World Heritage list: Stari Ras and Sopoćani monasteries added to the Heritage list in 1979, Studenica Monastery added in 1986, the Medieval Serbian Monastic Complex in Kosovo, comprising: Dečani Monastery, Our Lady of Ljeviš, Gračanica and Patriarchate of Pec, monestaties were added in 2004, and put on the endangered list in 2006, and Gamzigrad – Romuliana, Palace of Galerius, was added in 2007. Likewise, there are 2 literary memorials added on the UNESCO's list as a part of the Memory of the World Programme: Miroslav Gospels, handwriting from the 12th century, added in 2005, and Nikola Tesla's archive added in 2003.

The most prominent museum in Serbia is the National Museum, founded in 1844; it houses a collection of more than 400,000 exhibits, over 5600 paintings and 8400 drawings and prints, and includes many foreign masterpiece collections and the famous Miroslavljevo Jevanđelje. Currently museum is under reconstruction. The museum is situated in Belgrade.

Text: wikipedia.org