Zemun - Geography

Geography

Zemun originally developed on three hills, Gardoš, Ćukovac and Kalvarija, on the right bank of the Danube, where the widening of the Danube begins and the Great War Island is formed at the mouth of the Sava river. The core of the city are the neighborhoods of Donji Grad, Gardoš, Ćukovac and Gornji Grad. To the south, Zemun continues into Novi Beograd with which it makes one continuous urban area (neighborhood of Tošin Bunar). In the west it extends into the neighborhoods of Altina and Plavi Horizonti and to the north-west into Galenika, Zemun Polje and further into Batajnica.

The municipality is located in the eastern Syrmia region, in the central-western section of the Belgrade City area. The urban section of Zemun is the both most northern and western section of the urban Belgrade. Zemun borders the province of Vojvodina on the west (municipality of Nova Pazova), and municipalities of Surčin on the south, Novi Beograd on south-east and Palilula and Stari Grad across the Danube (north and east, respectively).

The Danube bank in the north is mostly marshy, so the settlements are built further from the river (Batajnica) separated from it by hillocks (up to 114 m). The city of Zemun itself was built right on the bank, 100 meters above sea level. These are points of the Zemun loess plateau, an extension of the Syrmia loess plateau, which continues into the crescent-shaped Bežanijska Kosa loess hill on the south-east. The yellow loess is thick up to 40 meters and very fertile, with rich, grass-improved, humus chernozem. The uninhabited river islands of Great War Island and Little War Island on the Danube, also belong to the municipality Zemun, too. Municipality has an area of 153 km².