Serbia, officially: Република Србија; (Republika Srbija, Transliteration); (The Republic of Serbia) is a landlocked country in Southeastern Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans. The capital and largest city is Belgrade and the official language is Serbian. Serbia lies at the crossroads between Central, Southern and Eastern Europe and between the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. As a result, Serbia has been a land of vital strategic importance for millennia. Greeks colonized in the fourth century BCE, displacing some of the native Celts and Illyrians and the region formed the northernmost part of Alexander the Great's empire. It was also an important part of the Roman empire, with no fewer than 17 Roman Emperors being born there. Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on the borders of the Byzantine empire and emperor Heraclius eventually allowed them to settle within the empires borders so that by the seventh century CE the region had come under nominal serbian rule. The earliest rudimentary Serb state arose in the mid ninth century, although it was mostly a vassal principality to the Byzantine and Bulgarian Empires alternatively. The First dynasty died out in 960 A.D. with the death of Prince Časlav and the region eventually came under direcy Byzantine rule. Around 1040 AD an uprising in the coastal Serb lands, in the medieval state of Duklja, overthrew Byzantine rule. Duklja then assumed domination over the Serbian lands between the 11th and 12th centuries. From late 12th century onwards, a new state called Raska, centred in present-day southern Serbia, rose to become the predominant Serb state though the region as a whole fragmented in four distinctly independent kingdoms — Dioclea, Rascia, Bosnia and Syrmia. The were eventually brought together as the Serbian Empire under Stefan Dušan, which was formed in 1346. But, by the beginning of the 15th century due to incursions by the Ottoman Turks the Serbian Empire had dissolved into many statelets. This saw the loss of Serbia's independence to the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The quest for independence of Serbia began during the Serbian national revolution (1804-1817), and it lasted for several decades. For the first time in Ottoman history an entire Christian population had risen up against the Sultan. The Convention of Ackerman (1826), the Treaty of Adrianople (1829) and finally, the Hatt-i Sharif of 1830, recognized the suzerainty of Serbia with Miloš Obrenović I as its hereditary Prince. Following the clashes between the Ottoman army and civilians in Belgrade in 1862, and under pressure from the Great Powers, by 1867 the last Turkish soldiers left the Principality. By enacting a new constitution without consulting the Porte, Serbian diplomats confirmed the de facto independence of the country. In 1876, Montenegro and Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, proclaiming their unification with Bosnia. The formal independence of the country was internationally recognized at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which formally ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78; this treaty, however, prohibited Serbia from uniting with Principality of Montenegro, and placed Bosnia and Raška region under Austro-Hungarian occupation to prevent unification.

On 28 June 1914 the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Gavrilo Princip (a Yugoslav unionist member of Young Bosnia) and an Austrian citizen, led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Kingdom of Serbia. Serbia (with its major campaign) was a major Balkan Entente Power which contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the Balkans in November 1918, especially by enforcing Bulgaria's capitulation with the aid of France. On 1 December 1918, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia joined the unitary Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Kingdom of Yugoslavia). King Peter I of Serbia became King Peter I of Yugoslavia. In an attempt to defend its borders the Kingdom of Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact with the Axis powers on 25 March 1941. As a result, on 27 March, Prince Paul was overthrown by a military coup d'état (with British support) and replaced by the 17-year-old King Peter II. This led directly to Germany invading Yugoslavia on 6 April and Yugoslavia capitulated on April 17th. After the invasion, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was dissolved and, with Yugoslavia partitioned, the remaining portion of Serbia became part of the Military Administration of Serbia, under a joint German-Serb government, with military power controlled by the German armed forces. On 29 November 1945, the constitutional assembly established by the Yugoslav Communist party proclaimed the abolition of the Serbian-led monarchy of Yugoslavia. A communist regime was established under a dictatorship led by Yugoslavia's Communist Party leader Joseph Broz Tito. Slobodan Milošević rose to power in Serbia in 1989 in the League of Communists of Serbia through a serious of coups against incumbent governing members. Milošević promised reduction of powers for the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. This ignited tensions with the communist leadership of the other republics that eventually resulted in the secession of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia, and Slovenia from Yugoslavia. Multiparty democracy was introduced in Serbia in 1990, officially dismantling the former one-party communist system. From 2003 to 2006, Serbia has been part of the "State Union of Serbia and Montenegro." This union was the successor to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SRJ). On 21 May 2006, Montenegro held a referendum to determine whether or not to end its union with Serbia. On 5 June 2006, following the referendum in Montenegro, the National Assembly of Serbia declared the "Republic of Serbia" to be the legal successor to the "State Union of Serbia and Montenegro" and Serbia and Montenegro became separate nations.

Serbia is a member of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Council of Europe which it presided over in 2007. It is also a potential candidate for membership in the European Union and a militarily neutral country.

Both its location and history makes Serbian cuisine and ecletic mix of Central European, Mditerranean and Midle Eastern cuisines. Meat, prticularly veal and pork are a specialiteis and Ćevapčići (sometimes used in its diminutive, Ćevapi), a dish consisting of mixed meat patties that are heavily seasoned and grilled are considered a national dish, as is Sarma (see recipes below) a stuffed cabbage dish.