Slavic Countries

Slavic Countries

The Slavic world consists of the Slavic-speaking states and populations in Eurasia. This area is situated in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, and Northern Asia, and includes the nations of Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine, and the disputed territories of Transnistria and Kosovo.

The Baltic states also have considerable Slavic populations plus large numbers of other citizens who can speak a Slavic language, particularly Russian. Over three-quarters of the population of Latvia speaks Russian either natively or as a second language. Roughly 29% of Latvia's and Estonia's population is Slavic (mostly Russian and Ukrainian), and 14.3% of the population of Lithuania speaks a Slavic language natively (mostly Polish).

Also included are Lusatia in eastern Germany (homeland of the Sorbs); parts of Carinthia, Burgenland and the city of Vienna in Austria; parts of Macedonia and Thrace in northern Greece; East Thrace in Turkey (by Bulgarians and Pomaks); north-eastern Italy (Trieste and surrounding areas, and in Molise); Romania (Caraș-Severin County, Timișoara and Dobruja); Moldova (home to Bessarabian Bulgarians and a considerable Russian and Ukrainian minority); Hungary (south and west, home to Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, north home to Slovaks and Ukrainians); and Albania in regions close to the border with former Yugoslav lands. These are home to historic Slavic-speaking minorities in what are majority non-Slavic nations.

Outside Europe, Russian is an official language in both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Among the other former Soviet states in Central Asia, Russian is spoken as a native language of 14% of the population of Uzbekistan and spoken as a second language by many more. Russian-speakers form at least 12% of the population in Turkmenistan. In Tajikistan, the number of native Russian-speakers has declined to less than 1%, though the language is widely used in government and business.

Russian is also an important language in the Caucasus. In Armenia, a majority of the population can speak the language and in Georgia, 9% of the population speaks Russian. In Azerbaijan, however, it is only spoken by about 2% of the population.