Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: Република Србија or Republika Srbija), is a landlocked country in Central and Southeastern Europe, covering the central part of the Balkan Peninsula and the southern part of the Pannonian Plain. The capital is Belgrade. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; Albania and the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west.

Serbs settled the region in the 6th through 7th century, fully converted to Christianity by the end of the 9th century, and formed two distinct independent kingdoms by the 13th century- in Dioclea and Rascia. The Medieval Serbian Empire rose from Byzantine and Bulgarian patronage to become a threat to the very existence of Constantinople itself. Under a string of accomplished leaders, from Stefan Nemanja, through the great Stefan Dusan, and culminating with the death of Prince Lazar at Kosovo in 1389, the medieval Serbs created a political entity which today still resonates strongly in the Serbian culture. Placed under Ottoman occupation in the 15th century following the collapse of the Serbian Empire, the uprisings against Turkish occupation between 1804-1815 reestablished Serbia as a state which obtained formal independence in 1878.