Kosovo ( ; ; lang: Kosovo i Metohija) is a de facto independent partially recognised country in the Balkans, which Serbia considers as a part of its sovereign territory as an autonomous province.

The landlocked region was a part of the lands of Thraco-Illyrian tribes, then of the Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Ottoman empires. In the 20th century it was part of the Kingdom of Serbia and its successor state Yugoslavia. Following the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, the territory came under the interim administration of the United Nations (UNMIK).

In February 2008, the Assembly of Kosovo declared Kosovo's independence as the Republic of Kosovo ( ). As of October 2008, its independence is recognised by countries and not recognized by others, including Serbia, which continues to claim sovereignty over Kosovo (as the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, ). Likewise, Serbia, backed by the majority of the UN states, has asked the UN Court of Justice to determine whether the seccession of the province was legal.

Kosovo borders Albania to the west, Central Serbia to the north and east, the Republic of Macedonia to the south, and Montenegro to the northwest. The largest city and the capital of Kosovo is Pristina (also Prishtina, Priština), while other cities include Peć (Peja), Prizren, and Mitrovica.

Name

main: Names of Kosovo Kosovo (Косово, ) is the Serbian neuter possessive adjective of kos (кос) "blackbird", an ellipsis for Kosovo Polje "field of the blackbirds", the site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo Field. The name of the field was applied to an Ottoman province created in 1864.

The region currently known as "Kosovo" became an administrative region in 1946, as the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. In 1974, the compositional "Kosovo and Metohija" was reduced to simple "Kosovo" in the name of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, but in 1990 was renamed back to Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.