Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia with an urban population of 1.2 million (15% of the country's population). The city lies at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. Belgrade has its own autonomous government and is the financial center of Serbia. Its name translates to white city.

Belgrade's wider city area was the cradle of the largest prehistoric culture of Europe, the Vinča culture, as early as the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, the area of Belgrade was inhabited by a Thraco-Dacian tribe Singi, followed by a Celtic tribe settlement after 279 BC. It was awarded city rights by the Romans and was permanently settled by Slavs beginning in the 520s. As a strategic location, the city was battled over in 115 wars and razed to the ground 44 times since the ancient period by countless armies of the East and West. In 1521 Belgrade was conquered by the Ottomans and became the principal city of Ottoman Europe and among the largest European cities. The status as capital of Serbia would be regained only in 1841, after the Serbian revolution. The city was the capital of Yugoslavia from 1918 to 2003.