Europe · The modern states
Yugoslavia
1918–1941
Proclaimed on 1 December 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes united the former independent Serbia and Montenegro with the South Slav lands of the collapsed Austria-Hungary under the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty (Peter I, then Alexander I). It was a fragile, centralised state riven by the "national question," above all the Serb–Croat conflict over centralism versus federalism.
- Existed
- 1918–1941
- Shown on the map
- 1919–1940, 1945 (2 periods)
- Peak area
- 250k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
Proclaimed on 1 December 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes united the former independent Serbia and Montenegro with the South Slav lands of the collapsed Austria-Hungary under the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty (Peter I, then Alexander I). It was a fragile, centralised state riven by the "national question," above all the Serb–Croat conflict over centralism versus federalism. After the 1928 assassination of Croatian Peasant Party leader Stjepan Radić in parliament, King Alexander I imposed a royal dictatorship in 1929 and renamed the state Yugoslavia ("Land of the South Slavs"). Alexander was assassinated in Marseille in 1934 by Macedonian and Croatian Ustaše-linked radicals. The 1939 Cvetković–Maček Agreement created an autonomous Croatian banovina, but too late. In April 1941 the Axis invaded and dismembered Yugoslavia, ending the first Yugoslav state.
Common questions
- What was Yugoslavia?
- Proclaimed on 1 December 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes united the former independent Serbia and Montenegro with the South Slav lands of the collapsed Austria-Hungary under the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty (Peter I, then Alexander I). It was a fragile, centralised state riven by the "national question," above all the Serb–Croat conflict over centralism versus federalism.
- When did Yugoslavia exist?
- Yugoslavia existed 1918–1941. On this map it is drawn 1919–1940, 1945.
- How large was Yugoslavia?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Yugoslavia covered about 250,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each state as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the ICTY and the 2004 Wiesel Commission for genocide and atrocity figures, and current news reporting (Reuters, AP, BBC, and others) for 2025–2026 political developments, which should be verified against live sources. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Kingdom of Yugoslavia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
See Yugoslavia in its world
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