Municipalities and cities of Serbia
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Municipalities and cities form the basic level of local government in Serbia. Serbia is divided into 147 municipalities (opštine) and 27 cities (gradovi).[1][2]
Of the 147 municipalities, 40 are located in Southern and Eastern Serbia, 42 in Šumadija and Western Serbia, 37 in Vojvodina and 28 (de facto 37) in Kosovo. Of the 27 cities, 7 are in Southern and Eastern Serbia, 10 in Šumadija and Western Serbia, 8 in Vojvodina, 1 in Kosovo, and 1 (Belgrade) has a status of separate statistical region.[1]
A city may and may not be divided into city municipalities (gradske opštine) depending on their size. Currently, there are six cities in Serbia with city municipalities: Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac, Požarevac and Vranje comprise several city municipalities each, divided into "urban" (in the city proper) and "other" (suburban). There are 33 city municipalities (17 in Belgrade, 5 in Niš, 5 in Kragujevac, 2 in Novi Sad, 2 in Požarevac and 2 in Vranje).[3]
Contents
Municipalities
Like in many other countries, municipalities are the basic entities of local government in Serbia. The head of the municipality is the President of the municipality, while the executive power is held by the Municipal council, and legislative power by the Municipal assembly. Municipal assembly is elected on local elections (held every 4 years), while the President and the Council are elected by the Assembly. Municipalities have their own property (including public service companies) and budget. Only the cities officially have mayors (gradonačelnici), although the municipal presidents are often informally referred to as such.
The territory of a municipality is composed of a town (seat of the municipality) and surrounding villages (e.g. the territory of the Municipality of Čoka is composed of the town of Čoka, which is the seat of the municipality, and surrounding villages). The municipality bears the name of the seat town. Only one municipality (Municipality of Gora) does not share the name with the seat town, as the seat of that municipality is the town of Dragaš. This municipality is located in Kosovo, and thus exists only on paper. The territory of the municipality was merged with part of the Municipality of Prizren in 2000 by UNMIK to form new Municipality of Dragaš. This move is not recognised by Serbian Government (see Municipalities and cities of Kosovo section).
Advocates of reform of Serbian local self-government system point out that Serbian municipalities (with 50,000 citizens in average) are the largest in Europe, both by territory and number of residents, and as such can be inefficient in handling citizens' needs and distributing the income from the country budget into most relevant projects.[4][5]
Cities and city municipalities
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Cities are another type of local self-government. The territory with the city status usually has more than 100,000 inhabitants,[1] but is otherwise very similar to municipality. There are 27 cities (gradovi), each having an assembly and budget of its own. Only the cities have mayors (gradonačelnik), although the presidents of the municipalities are often referred to as "mayors" in everyday usage.
As with a municipality, the territory of a city is composed of a city proper and surrounding villages (e.g. the territory of the City of Subotica is composed of the Subotica town and surrounding villages). Every city (and municipality) is part of a district. The exception is the capital Belgrade, which is not part of any district.[6]
The city may or may not be divided into city municipalities. Six cities: Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac, Požarevac and Vranje comprise several city municipalities. As of October 2013[update], town of Sevojno near city of Užice is in the process of creation of a separate city municipality, which would make Užice seventh on the list.[citation needed] Of those, only Novi Sad did not undergo the full transformation, as the newly formed municipality of Petrovaradin exists pretty much only formally;[citation needed] thus, the Municipality of Novi Sad is largely equated to City of Novi Sad. Competences of cities and city municipalities are divided. The city municipalities of the six cities above mentioned also have their assemblies and other prerogatives.
The two largest city municipalities by number of residents are Novi Sad (307,760) and Novi Beograd (212,104).[3]
Municipalities and cities of Kosovo
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Serbian law still treats Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia (officially the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija), although Kosovo declared independence in 2008. The Law on Territorial Organization defines 28 municipalities and 1 city on the territory of Kosovo.[1] Kosovo was under official United Nations' administration (UNMIK) from 1999 to 2008. The UNMIK administration changed the territorial organisation on the territory of Kosovo. In 2000 the municipality of Gora was merged with Opolje (part of the Municipality of Prizren) into the new municipality of Dragaš and one new municipality was created: Mališevo. Later, from 2005 to 2008, seven new municipalities were created: Gračanica, Elez Han, Junik, Parteš, Klokot-Vrbovac, Ranilug and Mamuša.[7] However, the Government of Serbia does not recognise the territorial re-organisation of Kosovo, although some of these new-formed municipalities have Serb majority, and some Serbs participate in local elections. In three of those municipalities: Gračanica, Klokot-Vrbovac and Ranilug, Serbian parties won a majority in the 2009 elections.[8][9]
In the Brussels Agreement, in 2013, Serbia agreed to disband its parallel municipal institutions in Kosovo, although it has been slow to act on this agreement.[10]
List of municipalities
This is a list of the municipalities in Serbia, as defined by the Law on territorial organisation[1] It does not include municipalities in Kosovo created by UNMIK after 1999. The data on population is taken from the 2002 census.[11]
The census was not conducted in Kosovo, which is under administration of UNMIK, so the population numbers are not given for the municipalities in Kosovo.
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List of cities and city municipalities
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See also
- Cities and towns of Serbia
- Populated places of Serbia
- Administrative divisions of Serbia
- Districts of Serbia
Notes and references
Notes:
- ↑ Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on 17 February 2008, but Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory. The two governments began to normalise relations in 2013, as part of the Brussels Agreement. Kosovo has been recognised as an independent state by 108 out of 193 United Nations member states.
References
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- ↑ 12.0 12.1 As given in the Law, in Serbian Cyrillic order
- ↑ Staute of the city of Novi Sad, Gazette of the City of Novi Sad No 43 (2 October 2008), official site of the city
- ↑ Staute of the city of Požarevac, Gazette of the City of Požarevac No2/2008 (30 June 2008), official site of the city
- Municipalities of Serbia 2008, Statistical Office of Serbia, issued January 2009, ISSN 1452-4856 (Public Domain, see template:PD-SerbiaGov)
External links
- Articles containing potentially dated statements from October 2013
- Articles with unsourced statements from October 2013
- Pages with broken file links
- Municipalities and cities of Serbia
- Subdivisions of Serbia
- Lists of country subdivisions
- Country subdivisions of Europe
- Third-level administrative country subdivisions
- Serbia geography-related lists
