Western Balkans

The Western Balkans refers to the group of countries that constituted the former Yugoslavia, except Slovenia, plus Albania.

Countries

For more information on these countries, see the Balkans article.

Former Yugoslavia

The territory of Yugoslavia, once a major constituent of the Balkans, split into:

Map of Western Balkans

Slovenia
Former Yugoslav federal unit, independent since 1991.
Wikivoyage treats this as part of Central Europe, rather than Western Balkans.

Croatia
Former Yugoslav federal unit, independent since 1991

Bosnia
Former Yugoslav federal unit, independent since 1991.

Serbia
Former Yugoslav federal unit, independent since 2006. The dominant unit of the former Yugoslavia, and considered to be its natural successor.

Kosovo
Former division of the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Serbia (autonomous province), declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which has not been recognized by Serbia and many other countries (disputed status)

Montenegro
Former Yugoslav federal unit, independent since 2006

North Macedonia
Former Yugoslav federal unit, independent since 1991

Other

Albania
An independent country since 1912

Understand

See also: Respect#Political discussions

People in former Yugoslav countries (in particular) often deride the notion of Western Balkans as an artificial or anachronistic grouping of countries and as a euphemism for the Europe's "problem region" in the context of Yugoslavia's breakup and war. As this term has gained a degree of acceptance among the broader public in the past couple of decades, users are inreasingly unaware that it is a political neologism with difficult overtones. Saying 'Western Balkans' is probably not suitable for general conversations (i.e. outside of political speech and political discussions) once you're actually in the Western Balkans; it's more natural to refer to former Yugoslav countries as such, or simply to the Balkans.

This article is on an extra-hierarchical region, describing a region that does not fit into the hierarchy Wikivoyage uses to organise most articles. These "extraregion" articles usually provide only basic information and links to articles in the hierarchy. This article can be expanded if the information is specific to the page; otherwise new text should generally go in the appropriate region or city article.