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Map of Serbia with districts and municipalities shown

The territorial organization of the Republic of Serbia is regulated by the Law on Territorial Organization and Local Self-Government, adopted in the Assembly of Serbia on 24 July 1991. Under the Law, the municipalities, cities and settlements make the bases of the territorial organization.

Serbia is divided into 195 municipalities and 4 cities, which are the basic units of local autonomy. It has two autonomous provinces: Kosovo and Metohija in the south (with 30 municipalities), which is presently under the administration of the United Nations, and Vojvodina in the north (with 46 municipalities).

The part of Serbia that is neither in Kosovo nor in Vojvodina is called Central Serbia. Central Serbia is not an administrative division (unlike the two autonomous provinces), and it has no regional government of its own.

In addition, there are four cities (gradovi): Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad and Kragujevac, each having an assembly and budget of its own. The cities 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).

Municipalities comprise local communities (mesne zajednice), which mostly correspond to settlements (villages) in the rural areas (several small villages can comprise one local community, and large villages can contain several communities). Urban areas are also divided into local communities. Their roles include communication of elected municipal representatives with citizens, organization of citizen initiatives related with public service and communal issues. They are presided with councils (saveti), elected on semi-formal elections, whose members are basically volunteers. Role of local communities is far more important in rural areas; due to proximity to municipal centers, many urban local communities are defunct.

Municipalities are gathered into districts (okruzi), which are regional centers of state authority, but have no assemblies of their own; they present purely administrative divisions, and host various state institutions such as funds, office branches and courts. The Republic of Serbia is divided into 29 districts (17 in Central Serbia, 7 in vojvodina and 5 in Kosovo, which are now defunct), while the city of Belgrade presents a district of its own.

Main articles:

• Districts of Serbia (okrug/Округ )
• Municipalities of Serbia (Opština/Општина)

This article is part of the series on the Republic of Serbia

History of Vojvodina | of Kosovo

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Proposed new regions

Some political parties in Serbia (notably Democratic Party of Serbia and Šumadija Coalition) proposed creation of new administrative units of Serbia. However, the idea is largely abandoned, and the adoption of a new constitution in autumn 2006 has effectively put an end to it, keeping the previously territorial organization more or less intact.

According to these proposals, Serbia would be divided into 6 regions:

• Vojvodina (capital city: Novi Sad), population: 2,031,974
• Kosovo (capital city: Pristina), population: 2,000,000 (est.)
• Šumadija (capital city: Kragujevac), population: 1,252,091
• Podunavlje (capital city: Niš), population: 1,521,732
• Podrinje (capital city: Užice), population: 990,072
• Belgrade City Region, population: 1,465,106

There are also some other similar proposals for the new regions in Serbia, with slight difference in the number and size of the proposed regions.

• (Serbian) Opštine u Srbiji, 2005. Republički zavod za statistiku Srbije, Issued March 2006. ISSN 1450-9075
• (Serbian) Republički zavod za statistiku Srbije, Administrativna podela Republike Srbije