In the
Roman period, "
Moesia" was the name for a region that included Serbia proper.
Viminacium (present-day
Kostolac) was the capital of the province of
Moesia Superior. Slavs (
Sclaveni) overwhelmed the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries. The Serbs, a Slavic tribe, were known to have held the area of what is today southwest Serbia in the
Early Middle Ages, while the
Royal Frankish Annals mention the
Braničevci and
Timočani, in the eastern parts, in the 9th century.
Raška, situated in the southwest, was the core of the medieval Serbian state;
Stari Ras has been identified as a capital of the
Grand Principality of Serbia. Serbia eventually expanded its borders to the east. The area of most of Serbia proper, as well as areas in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina,
northern Montenegro, Kosovo, and northern Macedonia were called "the Serbian lands", included in the styles of medieval Serbian rulers. King
Stefan Dragutin of Syrmia (r. 1282–1316) had two capitals,
Debrc and
Belgrade. After the
fall of the Serbian Empire, the "
Moravian Serbia" under
Lazar (r. 1373–89) and
Stefan Lazarević (r. 1389–1402) corresponded roughly to Serbia proper.
Kruševac was the capital of Moravian Serbia, until the Ottoman conquests in the 15th century, and the establishment of the
Serbian Despotate, with the capital in Belgrade. After the Ottoman conquest of the Serbian Despotate, the
Sanjak of Smederevo was established, initially seated in
Smederevo, and eventually, in Belgrade after
its fall in 1521 (hence called the "Pashaluk of Belgrade"). , roughly similar to the borders of Central Serbia Between 1718 and 1739, the Sanjak of Smederevo was occupied by the
Habsburg monarchy, which administered the area as the
Kingdom of Serbia. The
Serbian Militia operated throughout Serbia proper during the
1737–1739 war. The war ended in Ottoman victory, and returning of the sanjak. The northern half of Serbia proper was briefly under
Habsburg occupation during the
1787–1791 war, then returned. With the
First Serbian Uprising (1804–13), the sanjak became a
de facto Serbian state, known in historiography as "
Revolutionary Serbia". It was retaken by the Ottomans in 1813, however, the
Second Serbian Uprising (1815–17) saw Serbia recognized as an autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire. In 1878, Serbia became a fully independent state, also enlarging its territory to the south-east. The 1878 borders correspond to present-day Central Serbia save for small parts in the south-west. In the
Balkan Wars (1912–13), Serbia further expanded its borders to the south, taking control of much of present-day
Kosovo and
North Macedonia. Further territorial gains were made in the north (today's
Vojvodina) and south-west (
Sandžak region) in 1918, after
World War I. Serbia became part of the new
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on December 1, 1918. Serbia proper did not have a separate political status within the Kingdom; in 1929, when new provinces of the Kingdom were formed, Serbia proper was divided between five
banovine, one of which (
Morava Banovina) was established in the east with its capital in
Niš. Between 1941 and 1944, most of the territory was part of the area governed by the
Military Administration in Serbia under
German Wehrmacht occupation with a Serbian puppet government. The southwestern region of
Sandžak was occupied by
Italy and annexed to the neighbouring
Italian governorate of Montenegro; southern Kosovo was annexed to the
Kingdom of Albania while southeastern parts annexed by
Bulgaria. The Axis occupation ended in 1944 with the liberation of Yugoslavia by the
Yugoslav Partisans; Serbia was formed as one of the republics of the new socialist
Yugoslavia. In 1945, Vojvodina and Kosovo became autonomous provinces within Serbia, thus the part of Serbia that was outside these two regions became known as
uža Srbija ("Serbia proper"). At the beginning of the 1990s, the term
uža Srbija was replaced with the new term
Centralna Srbija ("Central Serbia") which was used in all official publications of the Serbian government that referred to the region. With the formation of
statistical regions of Serbia in 2009–10, three statistical regions:
Belgrade,
Šumadija and Western Serbia, and
Southern and Eastern Serbia are located within Central Serbia. ==Administrative divisions==