The Western Balkans region, former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), occupies an area of around 250,000 km2 (just slightly bigger than the United Kingdom and about half the size of Spain). Although, according to the European Union, this geographical term of Western Balkans comprises Albania and the former Yugoslavia, minus Slovenia. Thus, when we refer to the Western Balkans in this website we are adopting the European Union definition for this term.
The former Yugoslavia was formed by the six socialist republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia; and the two Socialist Autonomous Provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo. Currently, only Slovenia is a member of the European Union, although other countries, such as Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia, have already applied for European Union membership. Besides, the official currency of Montenegro is the Euro.
The population of the areas is around 25,000,000 inhabitants and the main ethic nationalities of the region are Serbs (34%), Croats (19%), Albanians (18%), Bosniaks (10%), Macedonians (5,5%), Montenegrins (1,4%) and Yugoslavs (1,4%). Besides, there is a long list of other minorities and ethnic groups in the region. These figures have been extracted from several censuses during the 90s and 2000s but given the complexity of the Western Balkans region it is difficult to provide any accurate numbers, and therefore the above percentages should be taken into account as approximations.