45 Fun Facts About Montenegro

What is the capital and largest city of Montenegro?

Podgorica's old town was all but destroyed in World War II, when only a clock tower, a mosque and a few houses survived, so the capital is largely a city built since 1946.

Montenegro's coastline lies on which sea?

The Adriatic shore came late: Montenegro was a landlocked mountain state until the peace settlement of 1878 gave it a lasting outlet to the sea.

Montenegro's anthem 'Oj, svijetla majska zoro' greets the bright dawn of which month?

May is the month: the title means 'Oh, Bright Dawn of May'. The song was a folk tune sung in many versions before a 2004 law on state symbols fixed its official text.

Which country borders Montenegro beyond the mouth of the Bay of Kotor?

Croatia meets Montenegro at the Prevlaka peninsula, which guards the mouth of the bay; the two disputed it after Yugoslavia broke up, and United Nations monitors stayed there until 2002.

What does the name Montenegro, Crna Gora in the local language, literally mean?

Black Mountain is the literal meaning of both names: 'Montenegro' simply translates Crna Gora, a name usually linked to the dark mountain that rises above the old capital.

Which organisation proposed the 55% bar for Montenegro's 2006 independence vote?

The European Union's envoy proposed the 55% rule, which the pro-independence side attacked as undemocratic before accepting it; the yes vote then cleared it with 55.5%.

Before 2006, Montenegro was in a state union with which country?

Serbia and Montenegro formed a loose state union in February 2003, replacing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; Montenegro voted to leave it three years later.

Which organisation did Montenegro join in June 2017?

NATO admitted Montenegro as its 29th member on 5 June 2017, eighteen years after alliance aircraft had bombed targets there during the Kosovo war.

Which currency has Montenegro used since 2002 without any formal agreement with its issuer?

The euro replaced the German mark, which Montenegro had adopted in place of the Yugoslav dinar; it uses the currency unilaterally and has no seat in the eurozone.

Montenegro's independence was recognised by the Great Powers at which 1878 gathering?

The Congress of Berlin recognised Montenegro's independence and roughly doubled its territory, though it cut back the larger gains promised months earlier at San Stefano.

In 1910 Montenegro's Prince Nicholas took which new title?

King was the title Nicholas I took in August 1910 to mark fifty years on the throne; he proved Montenegro's first and only king, deposed in 1918 when the country was absorbed into the new Yugoslav state.

Montenegro's celibate prince-bishops usually passed their office to whom?

A nephew was the usual heir: the Petrović-Njegoš prince-bishops, barred from marrying, each named a nephew to succeed them until the last one made himself a secular prince in 1852.

Which James Bond film is partly set in Montenegro?

Casino Royale (2006) sets its poker showdown in Montenegro, yet those scenes were shot in the Czech Republic, where the spa town of Karlovy Vary and its Grandhotel Pupp stood in for the country.

Prince-Bishop Petar II, known simply as Njegoš, is celebrated for which epic poem?

The Mountain Wreath is a drama in verse that Njegoš had printed in 1847 at an Armenian monastery in Vienna, and it is still counted his masterpiece.

Which maritime republic ruled the Bay of Kotor from 1420 until 1797?

Venice held Kotor from 1420 until the republic itself fell in 1797; the walls it built up the mountainside behind the town are now part of a UNESCO listing of its sea defences.

Zeta, the medieval forerunner of Montenegro, fell to which power in 1496?

The Ottomans forced out Zeta's lord, Đurađ Crnojević, in 1496 and within a few years attached the land to their sanjak of Scutari.

Before the Slavs arrived, the land that is now Montenegro was inhabited mainly by which ancient people?

The Illyrians, a group of Indo-European tribes, dominated the western Balkans before Rome conquered them; their last kingdom, under Gentius, fell in 168 BC.

Which occupying power faced a mass uprising in Montenegro from 13 July 1941?

Italy had occupied Montenegro after Yugoslavia's collapse in April 1941; the rising of 13 July won back almost the whole country within weeks before it was crushed, and the date is now Statehood Day.

From 1946 to 1992, Montenegro's capital bore what name?

Titograd honoured the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito: the city took the name in 1946, when it became the republic's capital, and returned to its historic name in 1992.

Which politician dominated Montenegro for three decades after Yugoslavia broke up?

Milo Đukanović rose as an ally of Slobodan Milošević, turned against him in 1997 and later led Montenegro to independence; he was prime minister or president for most of the years from 1991 to 2023.

Crkvice, a village high above the Bay of Kotor, is one of the places in Europe with the most what?

Rainfall at Crkvice comes to about five metres a year, among the heaviest in Europe, yet the karst limestone carries most of the water away through underground channels.

Which border peak, just higher than famous Bobotov Kuk, is Montenegro's highest point?

Zla Kolata, at 2,534 metres on the Albanian border, tops the list; Bobotov Kuk, a few metres lower, was taken for the highest until the border peaks were surveyed.

Bobotov Kuk, long thought to be Montenegro's highest point, lies in which mountain range?

Durmitor is the massif around Žabljak: glaciers shaped its peaks and left 18 lakes that locals call 'mountain eyes', and its national park has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980.

Which river in Montenegro carved a canyon up to 1,300 metres deep, often billed as Europe's deepest?

The Tara's canyon is about 80 kilometres long and UNESCO calls its gorges the deepest in Europe, although the Sulak canyon in Russia's Caucasus is measured some 600 metres deeper.

Which lake on the Montenegro-Albania border is the largest in the Balkans?

Lake Skadar is the largest lake in the Balkans and changes size with the seasons, swelling from under 400 square kilometres to about 530 at high water; the shore on Montenegro's side is a national park.

Which two mountain massifs rise straight from the shores of the Bay of Kotor?

Lovćen and Orjen wall in the bay on either side; the poet-ruler Njegoš asked to be buried on a Lovćen summit, and his mausoleum now crowns the mountain.

Which fortified islet on Montenegro's coast was a fishing village before Yugoslavia turned it into a luxury hotel?

Sveti Stefan had only about 20 residents left by 1954; the state moved them to the mainland and reopened the walled village as a hotel that drew guests such as Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor.

Which monastery, Montenegro's leading pilgrimage site, is built into an almost vertical cliff?

Ostrog was founded in the seventeenth century by Saint Basil of Ostrog, whose body is enshrined there; pilgrims climb to it because miracles are credited to the saint.

Besides Latin, which alphabet has equal standing under Montenegro's constitution?

Cyrillic and Latin are equal under the 2007 constitution, which also made Montenegrin the official language; a 2009 spelling reform then gave each alphabet two extra letters, written ś and ź in Latin.

Most Orthodox believers in Montenegro belong to which church?

The Serbian Orthodox Church, through its Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, has by far the largest following; its 2020 protest walks against a church-property law helped unseat the ruling party that year.

Montenegro's men's team won the 2008 European Championship in which sport?

Montenegro's water polo team won the 2008 European Championship in Málaga, just two years after independence, and finished fourth at the Beijing, London and Rio Olympics.

Montenegro's first Olympic medal, a silver in 2012, came from which team?

Montenegro's women's handball team took silver at London 2012, losing a tight final to Norway; it was the country's first Olympic medal as an independent nation.

The mountain village of Njeguši is known across Montenegro for which cured delicacy?

Prosciutto from Njeguši, called pršut, is dry-cured and smoked; its makers credit the taste to the mix of sea and mountain air in which the hams hang.

What is the main colour of Montenegro's flag, which bears a golden double-headed eagle?

Red, edged with gold, is the field of the flag adopted in July 2004; it was modelled on a banner of the old ruling dynasty, and the eagle carries a shield with a lion.

Which town holds the honorary title of Old Royal Capital of Montenegro?

Cetinje, founded in 1482 by Ivan Crnojević, stayed the capital until 1946; the palaces of those years now house museums, including the home of the poet-ruler Njegoš.

Which coastal town is Montenegro's main cargo port?

Bar grew up on the shore in the early 1900s, after a siege that ended in 1878 left its hill-town predecessor, Stari Bar, largely in ruins.

Which striker from Montenegro scored the only goal of the 1998 Champions League final for Real Madrid?

Predrag Mijatović's goal beat Juventus 1–0 in Amsterdam and ended Real Madrid's 32-year wait for a seventh European Cup.

Which river meets the little Ribnica in the centre of Montenegro's capital?

The Morača meets the small Ribnica in the middle of the capital, which took the stream's name in the Middle Ages; the Ribnica often runs dry in summer.

Duklja, medieval forerunner of Montenegro, threw off which empire's rule in the 1040s?

The Byzantine Empire lost its grip when Prince Vojislav destroyed an imperial army in the mountain passes around 1042; a generation later his son Mihailo won the pope's recognition for the state.

What is Montenegro's internet country-code domain?

Montenegro was assigned .me in 2007, a year after independence; because it reads as the English word 'me', the domain is sold worldwide for personal sites and catchy addresses.

Velika Plaža, Montenegro's longest beach, lies beside which southern town?

Ulcinj was long a haven for pirates; Velika Plaža, the 'Big Beach', runs from the town towards the river island of Ada Bojana.

The mountain railway opened in 1976 links Montenegro's coast with which capital city?

Belgrade is the other end of the line, which took about 25 years to build through mountains that demanded 254 tunnels; its Mala Rijeka Viaduct was the world's highest railway bridge until 2001.

Sailors of which empire's navy mutinied at their base in the Bay of Kotor early in 1918?

Austria-Hungary had held the bay since 1814 and kept warships there; months after its Slav sailors mutinied, the empire collapsed and Kotor passed to the new Yugoslav kingdom.

Which disaster badly damaged Kotor's cathedral in 1667?

An earthquake in 1667, the same one that devastated Dubrovnik up the coast, badly damaged the cathedral of Saint Tryphon, which had stood since 1166.

Which animal has become a symbol of Kotor, with its own museum in the old town?

Cats became Kotor's emblem because, it is said, sailing ships left them behind from ports all over the world; the old town now has a cat museum and shops devoted to them.