Municipalities and cities of Serbia, according to the Law on Territorial Organization
Serbia is divided into 150 municipalities (Serbian: opštine) and 24 cities (gradovi), which are the basic units of local self-government[1]. The city may and may not be divided into "city municipalities" (gradske opštine). Five cities, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac and Požarevac comprise several municipalities, divided into "urban" (in the city proper) and "other" (suburban). There are 31 city municipalities (17 in Belgrade, 5 in Niš, 5 in Kragujevac, 2 in Novi Sad and 2 in Požarevac).
Of the 150 municipalities, 83 are located in Central Serbia, 39 in Vojvodina and 28 in Kosovo. Of the 24 cities, 17 are in Central Serbia, 6 are in Vojvodina and 1 in Kosovo.[1]
Like in many other countries, municipalities are the basic entities of local autonomy in Serbia: they have assemblies elected on local elections (held every 4 years), presidents (predsednici opština), property (including public service companies) and budget. In addition, the city municipalities of the four cities above mentioned also have their assemblies and other prerogatives; only the cities officially have mayors (gradonačelnici), although the municipality presidents are often informally referred to as such.
Advocates of reform of Serbian local autonomy system point out that Serbian municipalities (with 50,000 citizens in average) are the largest in Europe, both by territory and number of citizens, and as such can be inefficient in handling citizens' needs and distributing the income from the country budget into most relevant projects.[2][3][unreliable source?]
Cities are another type of local self-government. The territory with the "city" status usually have more than 100,000 inhabitants[1], but is othervise very similar to municipality. There are 24 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.
The city may and may not be divided into "city municipalities". Five cities: Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac and Požarevac comprise several municipalities, divided into "urban" (in the city proper) and "other" (suburban). Competences of cities and their municipalities are divided. Of those, only Novi Sad did not undergo the full transformation, as the newly formed municipality of Petrovaradin exists pretty much only formally; thus, the Municipality of Novi Sad is largely equated to City of Novi Sad (and the single largest municipality in the country, with around 300,000 residents).
Serbian laws treat Kosovo as integral part of Serbia (Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija). The law on territorial organisation defines 28 municipalities and 1 city on the territory of Kosovo.[1] But, since 1999, Kosovo is under United Nations' administration of UNMIK. The UNMIK administration changed 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, Đeneral Janković, Junik, Parteš, Klokot-Vrbovac, Ranilug and Mamuša[4]. Serbian government does not recognize this move, 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 majority in the 2009 elections.[5][6]
This is the list of the municipalities in Serbia, as defined by the Law on territorial organization[1]. It does not include municipalities in Kosovo created by UNMIK after 1999. The data on population is taken from the 2002 census[7]. 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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