The Balkans is a geographical region in Southeast Europe, which partially coincides with the Balkan Peninsula. It takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the center of Bulgaria.
The Balkans is a geographical region in Southeast Europe, which partially coincides with the Balkan Peninsula. It takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the center of Bulgaria.
Balkans comes from the Turkish language meaning “chain of wooded mountains” or 'swampy forest'.
The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by water on three sides: the Black Sea to the east and branches of the Mediterranean Sea to the south and west (including the Adriatic, Ionian, Aegean and Marmara seas). The peninsula is bordered on the north by the Danube, Sava, and Krča rivers.
Shortly before the Middle Ages in the 5th and 6th centuries AD, the Balkans were invaded by the Romans. The Romans were said not to be like other conquerors. They were said to be very powerful and robust. They won and spread the Roman culture through the Balkan peninsula. The Balkan peninsula was completely under Roman control by 100 AD.
Countries in the Balkan region are:
Other countries that are not in the Balkan region but that are close to it and/or play or have played an important role in the region's politics, culture and history:
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The region's principal nationalities include:
The most common religions in the Balkans are Eastern Orthodox, Catholic Christianity and Sunni Islam. Many different specific kinds of each faith are practiced, with each of the Eastern Orthodox countries having its own national church with its own patriarch.
Eastern Orthodoxy is the principal religion in the following countries:
Roman Catholicism is the principal religion in the following countries:
Islam is the principal religion in the following countries:
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a special case - 50% are Muslim Bosniaks, 31% are Serbian Orthodox, and 15% are Catholic Croats (therefore 46% are Christian). The remaining 4% adhere to other denominations of Christianity, other religions, or are irreligious. In Bulgaria, Dobruja in Romania, North Macedonia and West Thrace in Greece, a high Muslim Minority of different Ethinicity like Turks, Tatars, Torbesh, Pomak and Xoraxane Roma live there.
From the 1990s onwards, in part due to the negative historical and political connotations of the term Balkans, especially since the wars and massacres of the 1990s in Yugoslavia in the western half of the region, the term Southeast Europe is becoming increasingly popular.
