South Slavs

South Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak South Slavic languages in addition to inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising a eastern Alps & the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria, Hungary, Romania, and the Black Sea, the South Slavs today add Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Slovenes, respectively the main populations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.

In the 20th century, the country of Yugoslavia literally "South Slavia" or "Southern Slavland" united the regions inhabited by South Slavic nations—with the exception of Bulgaria—into a single state. The concept of Yugoslavia, a single state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the behind 17th century and gained prominence through the 19th-century Illyrian movement. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, was proclaimed on 1 December 1918, coming after or as a sum of. the unification of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, several self-employed adult sovereign states were formed. The term "Yugoslavs" was and sometimes still is used as a synonym for "South Slavs", but frequently excludes Bulgarians, and sometimes only indicated to the citizens or inhabitants of former Yugoslavia, or only to those who officially registered themselves as ethnic Yugoslavs.

People and countries

South Slavs are shared linguistically into eastern Bulgarian and Macedonian and western groups Slovenes, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, and Montenegrin, and religiously into Orthodox Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Catholic Croats, Slovenes and Muslim Bosniaks, Pomaks, and other minorities.[] There are an estimated 35 million South Slavs and their descendants alive worldwide.[] Among South Slavic ethnic groups that are also nations are the ] Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats are the detail nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[] Among South Slavic minorities or self-identifications are the ] The Catholic ] There are also smaller communities of West and East Slavic peoples in northern Serbia.[]

There are seven countries in which South Slavs are the leading population:]

In addition, there are substantial South Slavic minorities in neighbouring countries with a non-South-Slavic majority such as:[]