Thanks for watching.... 1. Pristina 2. Prizren 3. Ferizaj (Uroševac) 4. Pec 5. Gjakova 6. Gjilan 7. Podujevo 8. Mitrovica 9. Vucitrn 10. Suva Reka Kosovo is a partially recognised state in Southeastern Europe, which declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 as the Republic of Kosovo. While Serbia recognises the Republic's governance of the territory, it still continues to claim it as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. Kosovo is landlocked in the central Balkan Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pristina. It is bordered by the Republic of Macedonia and Albania to the south, Montenegro to the west, and Central Serbia to the north and east. In antiquity, the Dardanian Kingdom, and later the Roman province of Dardania was located in the region. It was part of Serbia in the Middle Ages, and many consider the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 to be one of the defining moments in Serbian medieval history. After being part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the early 20th century, in the late 19th century Kosovo became the centre of the Albanian independence movement with the League of Prizren. As a result of the Ottomans' defeat in the First Balkan War (1912–13), it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbia. After a period of Yugoslav unitarianism in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the post-World War II Yugoslav constitution established the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within the Yugoslav constituent republic of Serbia. Long-term severe ethnic tensions between Kosovo's Albanian and Serb populations left Kosovo ethnically divided, resulting in inter-ethnic violence, including the Kosovo War of 1999. The war ended with a military intervention of NATO, which forced the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, which became a UN protectorate under UNSCR 1244. On 17 February 2008 Kosovo's Parliament declared independence. It has since gained diplomatic recognition as a sovereign state by 108 UN member states. Serbia refuses to recognise Kosovo as a state, although with the Brussels Agreement of 2013 it has accepted the legitimacy of Kosovo institutions and its special status within Serbia. Under the agreement, public institutions in Kosovo are operated by the Pristina government, rather than Belgrade. Kosovo is a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, International Road and Transport Union (IRU), Regional Cooperation Council, Council of Europe Development Bank, Venice Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Within the European Union, 23 of 28 members have recognised the Republic; Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain have not. Kosovo (Serbian Cyrillic: Косово, [kôsoʋo]) is the Serbian neuter possessive adjective of kos (кос) "blackbird", an ellipsis for Kosovo Polje, 'blackbird field', the name of a plain situated in the eastern half of today's Kosovo and the site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo Field. The name of the plain was applied to an Ottoman province created in 1864. The current borders of Kosovo were drawn while part of Yugoslavia in 1946, when the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija was created as an administrative division of the new Socialist Republic of Serbia. In 1974, the compositional "Kosovo and Metohija" was reduced to a simple "Kosovo" in the name of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, but in 1990 the region was renamed the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. (Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Косово и Метохија, Autonomna Pokrajina Kosovo i Metohija). By the independence declaration in 2008, its conventional long name became "Republic of Kosovo" (Albanian: Republika e Kosovës, Serbian Cyrillic: Република Косово, Republika Kosovo). The entire region is commonly referred to in English simply as Kosovo and in Albanian as Kosova (definite form, [kɔˈsɔːva]) or Kosovë ("indefinite" form, [kɔˈsɔːv]). In Serbia, a formal distinction is made between the eastern and western areas; the term Kosovo (Косово) is used for the eastern part centered around the historical Kosovo Field, while the western part is called Metohija (Метохија). Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo

• published: 11 Sep 2014
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