Serbia (Srbija / Србија) is a country that was a republic in the former Yugoslavia. It is located in the Balkans, in Southern Europe. It is surrounded by Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania to the south, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, Bulgaria to the southeast, Croatia to the northwest, Hungary to the north, the Macedonia to the south, and Romania to the northeast. It controls one of the major land routes from Central Europe to Turkey and further on to the Near East.