Yugoslavia

Until February 4, 2003 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia existed as a country in southeastern Europe. Yugoslavia formed in 1918 as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, renamed the "Kingdom of Yugoslavia" in 1929. After the World War II it became a communist state, (Petar II Karadjordjević was the last king) established on November 29, 1943 in Jajce[?] under president Josip Broz Tito, but unlike other Eastern and Central European communist countries, chose a course independent of the Soviet Union (see Informbiro[?]), and was not a member of the Warsaw pact.

After Tito's death, tension between the various peoples grew, and since 1991, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia all gained their independence. Nowadays the only remaining republics are Serbia and Montenegro, with the status of Kosovo still uncertain. Because there were large ethnic minorities within the various countries (Serbian regions in Croatia and Bosnia, Croatian in Bosnia, Albanians in Serbia and F.Y.R.O.M., Hungarian in Serbia), this was used as the cause for some bloody wars (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo War), through which Serbian nationalists tried to maintain the control over the whole of former Yugoslavia[?].

Fig. 1 - Map of Yugoslavia

The United Nations, and many individual states (including the United States) refused to recognise the remaining confederation of Serbia and Montenegro as the continuation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, although they accepted it as constituting a state. This situation is now resolved, with the admission of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the United Nations in 2000.

In 2002, Serbia and Montenegro came to a new agreement regarding continued co-operation, which, among other changes, promised the end of Yugoslavia. On February 4, 2003 the federal parliament of Yugoslavia dissolved the country and agreed to create a loose commonwealth of the remaining two states within a union. The new union of two states is called Serbia and Montenegro.

Country code (Top level domain): YU

From the CIA World Factbook 2000, with some Wikification:

• History of Yugoslavia
• Geography of Yugoslavia
• Demographics of Yugoslavia
• Politics of Yugoslavia
• Economy of Yugoslavia
• Communications in Yugoslavia
• Transportation in Yugoslavia
• Military of Yugoslavia
• Foreign relations of Yugoslavia
• Republics within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Serbia and Montenegro
• the Vojvodina region and its municipalities - Novi Sad and Subotica
• the Kosovo region
• Belgrade - the capital of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
• Podgorica
• Priština[?]
• Niš