Kosovo, << KOH soh voh, >> also spelled Kosova, is a country in southeastern Europe. Its capital is Priština, also spelled Prishtina. Kosovo is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the northwest, Serbia to the north, and North Macedonia to the southeast. The majority of Kosovars are Albanians. Other people in Kosovo include Montenegrins, Serbs, and Turks. In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, as a region of Serbia, Kosovo was torn by ethnic conflict. In 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia.
Government.
Kosovo’s head of government is the prime minister, who is elected by the Kosovo Assembly. The president of Kosovo is the head of state. The Kosovo Assembly is a one-house legislature, consisting of 120 delegates.
The country’s highest judicial body is the Kosovo Supreme Court. The Kosovo Judicial Council proposes candidates for judicial office. The council also investigates and disciplines cases of judicial misconduct.
People.
Albanians make up about 90 percent of Kosovo’s population, and Serbs account for about 8 percent. Other groups include Bosniaks (also called Bosnian Muslims), Croats, Egyptians, Montenegrins, Roma, and Turks. The major religions in Kosovo include Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, and Roman Catholicism. Albanian and Serbian are the country’s official languages. Other languages include Bosnian, Romani, and Turkish.
Land and climate.
Kosovo, a landlocked country, covers a mostly mountainous area. About 35 percent of the country consists of flatlands and valleys that are suitable for farming. Winters are relatively cold, with heavy snowfall. Summers are hot and dry. Rainfall is heaviest between October and December. The main rivers in Kosovo are the Beli Drim (also spelled Drini i Bardhë), the Ibar (also spelled Ibër), and the Lepenac (also spelled Lepenc) rivers. Íar (also spelled Sharr) National Park has a wide variety of plant life.
Economy.
Kosovo is one of the poorest countries in Europe. It has a high unemployment rate, and many of its people live in poverty. Foreign aid and remittances (money sent home) from Kosovars working abroad are helpful sources of national income.
Service industries employ about two-thirds of the country’s work force. Farming is a major industry in Kosovo. Crops grown in the country include corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and wheat. Farmers also raise chickens, dairy cattle, and sheep. Manufacturing is also important to the country’s economy. Kosovo’s factories produce processed foods, textiles, and transportation equipment. Mined resources include coal, lead, limestone, nickel, and zinc.
History.
The earliest inhabitants of the region that is now Kosovo were a group of people called the Illyrians. Slavs first arrived in the Kosovo area in the A.D. 500’s, but it was not until the 800’s that a strong Slavic state arose in the region. Historical records first mention Albanians in Kosovo in 1043. The Albanian presence in the area grew over the next 200 years.
A series of rulers.
In the 850’s, Kosovo became part of the first Bulgarian kingdom. From 1014 to 1018, Kosovo became attached to the Byzantine Empire. Serbian rulers gradually brought Kosovo under their control from 1180 to 1216. In 1389, the Ottoman Turks defeated the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo. The Ottomans conquered Serbia in the mid-1400’s, and Kosovo was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire.
Kosovo remained under Ottoman rule until 1912, when the Serbian army seized it during the First Balkan War (1912-1913). In 1918, Kosovo became part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes—later renamed Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav government limited the rights of the Albanians in Kosovo and drove thousands from their homes. 
The Yugoslav republics.
By the end of World War II (1939-1945), Yugoslavia had come under Communist control. In 1946, Yugoslavia became a federal state with six republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Kosovo became at first an autonomous (self-governing) region, and later an autonomous province of the republic of Serbia. Kosovo at that time had its own parliament and police force. However, in 1989 and 1990, Serbia ended Kosovo’s autonomy and denied the Albanians various rights, firing many Albanians from their jobs and terminating Albanian-language instruction in some schools. In 1992, Serbia and Montenegro formed a new Yugoslavia after the other four republics declared independence.
Rebellion and violence.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a rebel group seeking independence for Kosovo, attacked Serbian police stations and vehicles in 1997. In early 1998, Serbian forces attacked Kosovo in a crackdown on the KLA. Later that year, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) tried to arrange a cease-fire, but fighting between Serbian forces and the rebels continued. Serbian forces launched a campaign against Kosovo’s Albanians in late 1998, driving many from their homes. 
NATO-sponsored peace talks in early 1999 led to a plan that representatives of Kosovo’s Albanians approved but Serbia’s delegates rejected. NATO began air strikes against military targets in Serbia to force the government to accept the peace plan. Still, Serbian forces continued attacks on Kosovo. Hundreds of thousands of people fled. Eventually, in June, Serbian leaders agreed to withdraw their troops. NATO stopped the bombing and sent an international peacekeeping force to Kosovo. The United Nations (UN) sent officials to serve as a temporary regional government.
Many refugees returned to Kosovo, but tensions ran high between Serbs and Albanians. Despite the presence of peacekeepers, the tensions frequently erupted into violence. In 2000, local elections were held in Kosovo for the first time since the end of the fighting. Many Serbs refused to participate in these and later elections because they believed the elections unfairly favored the Albanians.
Independence movements.
Yugoslavia changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro in 2003. In 2006, Montenegro declared independence, after its citizens voted to separate from Serbia. Serbia then declared its own independence.
In 2007, the Serbian government rejected a UN proposal that would have given Kosovo more autonomy and a path toward independence. Most of Kosovo’s Albanians approved of the UN plan. Serbian officials, however, considered Kosovo a historic part of Serbia and wanted to regain complete control of the province.
Most of Kosovo’s Albanians had been demanding full independence for the province since the early 1990’s. Serbia’s government offered to grant Kosovo more control over its own affairs, but the Albanians rejected the offer. International delegates from the UN and the European Union (EU) failed to negotiate a settlement between Serbia and Kosovo.
On Feb. 17, 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. A governing staff called the International Steering Group (ISG)—consisting of officials from Europe, the United States, and Turkey—took over the duties of the temporary UN government later that year. In 2012, the ISG turned over governing duties to Kosovo’s elected government, ending a period known as “supervised independence.” Thousands of NATO peacekeepers and EU police and legal personnel remained in the country.
The Serbian government has refused to recognize an independent Kosovo. Such countries as China, Russia, and Spain have refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence. France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and more than 100 other nations have agreed to recognize Kosovo as an independent republic. Tensions have flared between the Kosovo central government and Kosovo Serb communities in the north. Negotiations to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo continued into the 2020’s.
See also Balkans ; Priština ; Serbia ; Yugoslavia .
