Montenegro

Montenegro is a country on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe, bordered by Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania and Croatia, with Podgorica as its capital and largest city and Cetinje serving as the historic Old Royal Capital and cultural center. The territory passed through Ottoman rule from 1496 to 1878, gained international recognition at the 1878 Congress of Berlin, became a kingdom in 1910, and joined the new Yugoslav state after the First World War, later living through decades of communist rule as part of Yugoslavia. Montenegro declared independence on 3 June 2006, following a referendum on 21 May 2006 in which 55.5 percent voted to leave the federal union with Serbia that had existed since Yugoslavia's breakup in 1992. It operates as a unitary parliamentary republic, with a population of about 623,000 as of the 2023 census, adopted the euro unilaterally without joining the eurozone, and became a NATO member in June 2017 while continuing EU accession talks begun in 2012.