South Slavs

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South Slavs

Јужни Славени/Južni Slaveni (Bosnian) Южни славяни (Bulgarian) Južni Slaveni (Croatian) Јужни Словени (Macedonian) Južni Sloveni/Јужни Словени (Montenegrin) Јужни Словени/Južni Sloveni (Serbian) Južni Slovani (Slovenian)
Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language   Countries where East and West Slavic languages are the national language
Total population
c. 30 million
Regions with significant populations
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia
Languages
Eastern South Slavic: Bulgarian Macedonian Western South Slavic: Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian) Slovene
Religion
Eastern Orthodoxy: (Bulgarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Serbs)[citation needed] Roman Catholicism: (Croats, Slovenes, Bunjevci, Šokci and Banat Bulgarians)[citation needed] Sunni Islam: (Bosniaks, Pomaks, Gorani, Torbeši and Ethnic Muslims)[citation needed]
Related ethnic groups
Other Slavs

South Slavs are Slavic people who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria, Hungary, Romania, and the Black Sea, the South Slavs today include Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes.

In the 20th century, the country of Yugoslavia (from Serbo-Croatian, literally meaning "South Slavia" or "South Slavdom") united a majority of the South Slavic peoples and lands—with the exception of Bulgarians and Bulgaria—into a single state. The Pan-Slavic concept of Yugoslavia emerged in late 17th-century Croatia, at the time part of the Habsburg monarchy, and gained prominence through the 19th-century Illyrian movement. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, was proclaimed on 1 December 1918, following the unification of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro. With the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, several independent sovereign states were formed.

The term "Yugoslavs" was and sometimes is still used as a synonym for "South Slavs", but it usually excludes Bulgarians since Bulgaria never formed part of the former Yugoslavia.