MontenegroCrna Gora / Црна Гора

Illyrian tribes ruled the coast and Lake Skadar before Rome defeated Queen Teuta's successors and absorbed the region in the 2nd century BC. The Roman town of Doclea near Podgorica gave its name to Duklja, the first South Slavic state in the area, which won recognition from the Pope in the 11th century.

The Bay of Kotor — Boka Kotorska — has its own history. A deep, winding inlet walled by mountains, it sheltered sailors for millennia. Kotor was Byzantine, then Serbian under the Nemanjić dynasty, then Venetian from 1420 to 1797. Venice built the walls that zigzag up the mountain behind Kotor to the fortress of San Giovanni, and the captains of Perast grew rich enough to fill a small village with baroque palaces and churches.

Boka's seafarers served Venice's fleet and trained Russian naval officers under Peter the Great. The islet of Our Lady of the Rocks off Perast was built up stone by stone by sailors dropping rocks on a reef, a custom still honoured each July in the fašinada procession of boats. After Venice fell, the bay passed to Austria, which held it until 1918 and fortified it as a naval base.

Inland, the story is different. When the Ottomans overran the Balkans, the Crnojević princes retreated to the rocky plateau under Mount Lovćen and founded Cetinje in 1482, with a monastery and one of the first printing presses in South-East Europe. The name Crna Gora, Black Mountain, came from the dark forests that covered the heights.

From 1696 the Petrović-Njegoš family ruled as prince-bishops (vladikas), passing power from uncle to nephew because bishops could not marry. Montenegro was never fully conquered by the Ottomans: its clans held the mountains, fought, raided and bargained for independence. The most famous ruler, Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, was a bishop, prince and poet; his epic 'The Mountain Wreath' (1847) is the founding text of Montenegrin and Serbian literature, and he is buried on the summit of Lovćen.

Nikola I turned the principality into a kingdom in 1910. Independence was recognised at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, and great powers opened embassies in tiny Cetinje. Nikola married his daughters into the royal houses of Italy, Russia and Serbia, earning the nickname 'father-in-law of Europe'. The embassy buildings, now museums and institutes, still line Cetinje's streets.

In 1918 a disputed assembly in Podgorica deposed King Nikola and joined Montenegro to Serbia and then the new Yugoslav kingdom. Supporters of independence, the Greens, rose in the Christmas Uprising of 1919 against the unionist Whites. The quarrel over whether Montenegrins are a separate nation or a branch of the Serbs has shaped politics ever since.

In Tito's Yugoslavia Montenegro became a full republic, and Titograd — today's Podgorica, rebuilt after heavy wartime bombing — its capital. The Bar–Belgrade railway, finished in 1976, gave the coast a link to the interior over the Mala Rijeka viaduct. A major earthquake in April 1979 damaged Kotor, Budva and Ulcinj; much of what you see was restored afterwards.

In the 1990s Montenegro stayed with Serbia, and its forces took part in the shelling of Dubrovnik in 1991, for which Montenegro's president later apologised. Under Milo Đukanović the republic drifted from Belgrade, adopted the Deutsche Mark and then the euro, and held an independence referendum in May 2006: 55.5% voted to leave, just above the 55% threshold the EU had set.

Montenegro has about 620,000 people. In the 2023 census about 41% called themselves Montenegrins and about 33% Serbs, with Bosniaks, Albanians and others making up the rest. Language, church and nation overlap: many speak 'Serbian' and belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church, others speak 'Montenegrin' and support a separate Montenegrin church. A 2019 law on church property brought mass Serbian Orthodox processions and helped topple the long-ruling DPS in 2020.

Highland society was organised in clans (plemena), with codes of honour, blood feud and hospitality that shaped the national self-image of courage and pride. Montenegrins joke about their own reputation for leisure — there are 'Montenegrin commandments' about never working too hard. The gusle, a one-stringed fiddle accompanying epic songs, remains a symbol of that heritage.

The coast is more Mediterranean and Catholic in places, with Croat communities in the bay; Ulcinj and the south-east are mostly Albanian and Muslim; Rožaje and Plav in the north-east are Bosniak. The country's small size means these worlds are a few hours apart.

Montenegro rises from sea level to over 2,500 metres within a short distance. Durmitor National Park in the north has glacial lakes such as the Black Lake, limestone peaks topped by Bobotov Kuk, and the Tara River canyon, about 1,300 metres deep at its deepest and among the deepest in Europe. The 1940 Đurđevića Tara bridge crosses it on five concrete arches.

Biogradska Gora protects one of Europe's last old-growth forests around a lake; Prokletije, the 'Accursed Mountains', straddles the borders with Albania and Kosovo and carries the Peaks of the Balkans trail. Lake Skadar, shared with Albania, is the largest lake in the Balkans, a breeding site for Dalmatian pelicans and a place of island monasteries and fishing villages.

The coast is short — about 290 km — but varied: the fjord-like bay, the Budva riviera's cliffs and coves, and Ulcinj's Velika Plaža, a 12-km sandy beach near the Albanian border.

Montenegro joined NATO in 2017 and is the most advanced EU candidate in the Western Balkans, with a stated aim of closing negotiations by the end of 2026 — check progress. Politics since 2020 has been fragmented, with coalitions of pro-Serbian, centrist and civic parties replacing the DPS that ruled for three decades.

Tourism is the economy's engine, and it has transformed the coast: marinas like Porto Montenegro in Tivat, cruise ships in Kotor, apartment blocks along the Budva riviera. Foreign investment, including Russian, Turkish, Gulf and Western money, has driven a property boom. Kotor has capped cruise calls on some days to manage crowds.

Organised crime linked to cocaine smuggling has made headlines, with clan feuds carried out mostly between criminal groups. Visitors are rarely affected, but it explains why the police presence around ports is visible.