The lands included are a part of the Baranja, the Mesopotam ian area in the angle between the Danube and the Drava, the remainder of the Baranja being still attached to Hungary; the greater part of the BaCka, the area between the Danube and the Lower Tisa, the smaller part remaining Hungarian ; the western part of the Banat, or area east of the Lower Tisa, the eastern part attached to Greater Rumania. The Voyvodina in this sense includes the town of many names now officially called Subotica (Ger. Theresiopel, Magyar Szbadka), a market-town and a con siderable centre of communication for the plain. Subotica (100, 058) is the third largest town of the new kingdom.
Regional Division.—It has to be noted that while the lands briefly described above are those which were united together to form Yugoslavia, they have ceased to exist as units. By a decree promulgated by the Ministerial Council in 1922, Yugoslavia was divided into 33 oblasti or regions, on a basis which has been stated to show "strong religious and political party influences"; which may be interpreted as meaning that they are intended to ensure Serb predominance. It is noteworthy that the old administrative or political river frontiers have sometimes been preserved in the regions ; as occurs for example with the Drina (where it separated Bosnia and Serbia) and the Sava (where it separated Bosnia and Slavonia), and there they isolate from each other groups of dif feren:. religious and political sympathies. But the old political frontier of the Danube has been disregarded to allow the oblast of Belgrade to extend into the eastern part of the Ba'6ka which has a considerable Orthodox element as well as many Catholics, and also into a part of the Banat where there is a similar mingling of creeds. The remainder of the Banat is included in a region (Podu Nayska or Danube) which also extends across the Danube. Here the solidly Orthodox element in that part of the oblast which lies in Serbia more than counter-balances the Catholics which are intermixed with the Orthodox in the formerly Hungarian region on the left bank of the Danube.
Population.—The 1931 census showed that io million of the 13,930,918 inhabitants of Yugoslavia spoke Serbo-Croat, and over 1 million the Slovene language. Thus Serbs, Croats and Slovenes constitute together about 85% of the total popula tion. The largest minority group is the German-speaking one, numbering over half a million. Most of the Germans inhabit the
Voyvodina where they form about 23% of the population of that heterogeneous territory. There they live in compact agricultural colonies as well as forming a considerable part of the town popu lation. The remainder live for the most part in Croatia-Slavonia and in Slovenia. In the latter area they are mainly urban. The Magyar-speaking element is only slightly less than the German speaking one, and the Magyars constitute nearly the same percent age of the population in the Voyvodina as do the Germans. There they occur particularly in the neighbourhood of the river Tisa, of ten in compact groups. Elsewhere they occur chiefly in Croatia Slavonia. The third considerable minority element is formed by the Albanian-speaking peoples. These are not much inferior to the Hungarians in numbers, and their proximity to the independent kingdom of Albania in Old Serbia and Serbian Macedonia gives a possibility of irredentist propaganda. Albanians are practically limited to this part of Yugoslavia. There are also about million Rumanian-speaking people, of whom the majority live in the Timok region of Serbia, or more accurately, between the river Timok, the Danube and Upper Mlava. Rather more than a mil lion people are registered as speaking Slav languages other than Serbo-Croat or Slovene. These include a certain number of Czechoslovaks in the Voyvodina and Croatia-Slavonia.
The density of pop. (1921) is highest in the Voyvodina (181 per sq. m.), a fact which reflects the productivity of this fertile agricultural region, well fitted for the growth of cereals. In Slovenia (169) and Croatia-Slavonia (162) the density is not greatly inferior. Here the causes are not only the presence of productive lands but the considerable degree of development of the economic resources, associated with marked urbanization. While Serbia has but one large town, and outside of that town has a population mainly of peasants, occupations in Croatia and Slovenia are diverse, mining and manufacturing having made a good deal of progress. Serbia as a whole has a density (111 per sq. mile) lower than that of Dalmatia (126), but the figure is reduced by the fact that the lands added in 1913 are undeveloped and thinly-peopled. In Bosnia and Hercegovina and particularly in barren Montenegro the density is low. For the whole kingdom the density is 125 per square mile.