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Yugoslavia Essay

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One of the youngest nations of Europe, Yugoslavia was created after World War I as a homeland for several different rival ethnic groups. The country was put together mostly from remnants of the collapsed Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Demands for self-determination by Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and others were ignored. Yugoslavia thus became an uneasy association of peoples conditioned by centuries of ethnic and religious hatreds. World War II aggravated these rivalries, but Communist dictatorship after the war controlled them for 45 years. When the Communist system failed, the old rivalries reasserted themselves; and in the early 1990s the nation was rent by secessionist movements and civil war. Within several years these conflicts …show more content…

     The mountainous nature of the country causes considerable climatic differences from one place to another. The Dalmatian coast has a typical Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. The Mid-Danube Plain has a continental climate with cold winters, hot summers, and moderate precipitation. The mountain regions have on the whole colder and shorter summers and more severe winters compared with other regions.      The major environment hazard in Yugoslovia is earthquakes. The whole region is subject to earthquakes of considerable severity, and in 1963 the city of Skopje was almost entirely destroyed by one.      Yugoslavia has numerous deposits of lignite, or brown coal, exist, but there is little good-grade black coal. There are some small petroleum and natural gas field. The major source of energy is waterpower, which provides about one third of the country’s electricity. Yugoslavia is a major European producer of lead and copper. Other minerals include iron ore, zinc, silver, gold, nickel, mercury, and antimony.      About 37 percent of the country is forest covered. The predominant species are oak, beech, and other deciduous trees, with such evergreens as pine and fir in the mountains. The soils of the Mid-Danube Plain are the best in the country for farming.

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