Southern and Eastern Serbia

Southern and Eastern Serbia Јужна и источна Србија
Statistical region of Serbia
Location of Southern and Eastern Serbia
Country	Serbia
Founded	2010
Largest city	Niš
Area [1]
• Total	26,245 km^2 (10,133 sq mi)
• Rank	2nd
Population [2]
• Total	1,406,050
• Rank	4th
• Density	54/km^2 (140/sq mi)
GDP [3]
• Total	RSD 1,077.359 billion €9.172 billion (2022)
• Per capita	RSD 763,000 €6,496 (2022)
HDI[4]	0.797 (2019) high · 4th in Serbia

The Southern and Eastern Serbia (Serbian: Јужна и источна Србија, romanized: Južna i istočna Srbija) is one of five statistical regions of Serbia. It is also a Level-2 statistical region according to the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS).

History

In 2009, the National Assembly adopted a law which divided Serbia into seven statistical regions.[5] At first, it was decided that in the territory of current statistical region of Southern and Eastern Serbia there would be two statistical regions – Eastern Region (Serbian: Источни регион, romanized: Istočni region) and Southern Region (Serbian: Јужни регион, romanized: Južni region). However, in 2010, the law was changed, thus the Eastern and Southern regions were merged into a single statistical region named Southern and Eastern Serbia.

Administrative districts

The statistical region of Southern and Eastern Serbia is composed of 9 administrative districts:

District	Area (km^2)	Population (2022)	Seat
Podunavlje	1,250	175,573	Smederevo
Braničevo	3,865	156,367	Požarevac
Bor	3,510	101,100	Bor
Zaječar	3,623	96,715	Zaječar
Nišava	2,727	343,950	Niš
Pirot	2,761	76,700	Pirot
Toplica	2,229	77,341	Prokuplje
Jablanica	2,770	184,502	Leskovac
Pčinja	3,520	193,802	Vranje

Demographics

The region is heavily affected by depopulation. Most critical situation is in municipalities of Gadžin Han, Crna Trava, Ražanj, Trgovište, Dimitrovgrad, and Bosilegrad. A stark example of depopulation is Crna Trava, which used to have 13,614 inhabitants in 1948, while in 2022 only 1,063 people were registered.[6]

Cities and towns

The following list include cities and towns with over 20,000 inhabitants.

City or town	Population (2022)[7]
Niš	182,797
Smederevo	59,261
Leskovac	58,338
Vranje	50,954
Požarevac	42,530
Pirot	34,942
Zaječar	32,448
Bor	28,822
Prokuplje	24,627
Smederevska Palanka	20,345

Ethnic structure

Ethnicity	Population (2022)[8]	Share
Serbs	1,173,092	83.43%
Albanians	58,145	4.14%
Romani people	50,671	3.60%
Vlachs	19,569	1.39%
Bulgarians	10,554	0.75%
Undeclared	20,495	1.46%
Unknown	59,725	4.25%

See also

• Statistical regions of Serbia
• Šumadija and Western Serbia

References

1. "Региони у Републици Србији" (pdf). stat.gov.rs (in Serbian). Statistical Office of Serbia. 16 October 2019. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
2. "Први резултати Пописa становништва, домаћинстава и станова 2022". stat.gov.rs (in Serbian). Statistical Office of Serbia. 21 December 2022. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
3. "REGIONAL GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT Regions and areas of the Republic of Serbia, 2023" (PDF).
4. "Sub-national HDI - Area Database - Global Data Lab". hdi.globaldatalab.org. Retrieved 2021-07-19.
5. "Uvedeno sedam statističkih regiona". B92.net (in Serbian). Retrieved 2021-03-02.
6. "SANU: Jug Srbije sve prazniji, potrebne sistemske promene". Južne vesti. 25 March 2019.
7. "Serbia: Regions, Districts and Major Cities – Population Statistics, Maps, Charts, Weather and Web Information".
8. https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/G2023/Pdf/G20234001.pdf

External links

• Usvojene izmene i dopune Zakona o regionalnom-razvoju (in Serbian)