11/10/2024
BALKAN COUNTRIES or simply called BALKANS
The borders of the Balkans are, due to many contrasting definitions, disputed. There exists no universal agreement on the region's components. The term by most definitions fully encompasses Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, European Turkey, the Romanian coast, most of Serbia, large parts of Croatia and southern parts of Slovenia. Sometimes the term includes all of Romania and Serbia. The Province of Trieste in northeastern Italy, although by some definitions considered part of the peninsula, is generally excluded. Although they have no territory on the peninsula, Hungary and Moldova are occasionally incorporated into broader discussions of the Balkans due to cultural or historical affiliations, along with all of Croatia and Slovenia.
The origin of the word Balkan is obscure; it may be related to Turkish bālk 'mud' (from Proto-Turkic *bal 'mud, clay; thick or gluey substance', cf. also Turkic bal 'honey'), and the Turkish suffix -an 'swampy forest' or Persian bālā-khāna 'big high house'.It was used mainly during the time of the Ottoman Empire. In both Ottoman Turkish and modern Turkish, balkan means 'chain of wooded mountains'.
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