Yearbook 2010
Montenegro. According to COUNTRYAAH, Montenegro has a population of 622,182 (2019). Efforts continued to achieve EU and NATO membership. The country participated in the armed operation in Afghanistan and planned to send troops to fight pirates outside Somalia. The major stumbling block was deficiencies in the judiciary and widespread corruption, just as in other Eastern European states. The special thing about Montenegro was that the Prime Minister, Milo Đukanović, was accused of himself being involved in organized crime. He himself did not deny that the state in the 1990s leased its ports and airports which became hubs for cigarette smuggling. According to Đukanović, it was perfectly legal and necessary to manage the economy, which was bankrupt. According to softwareleverage, Montenegro was part of what was then Yugoslavia, which was subject to sanctions in the Balkan wars. Previous charges against motukanović, in the EU and the US.
Montenegro seemed unlikely to strengthen its cards when Thailand’s deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was granted citizenship in March without any official explanation. He only stayed temporarily in the country. A Thai arrest warrant was issued for Thaksin, who was sentenced to prison for corruption in his home country.
Despite the question marks, in a November statement, the EU Commission considered that significant progress had been made towards membership. In December, Montenegro was formally adopted as a candidate country. Just a few days later, Đukanović, who ruled Montenegro for almost 20 years, resigned. Parliament appointed Igor Luksic as new Prime Minister.
- Abbreviation Finder: Check to see how the two letter abbreviation of MW stands for the country of Montenegro in geography.
Population
It is not possible to follow the development of the population through time with some exactness of data, not even for the last century, either because of the continuous successive shifts of the borders, or because of the lack and discrepancy of information materials. In 1882 the population of Montenegro was estimated by Schwarz at 160,000 residents, While the current figure was 230,000. In 1900 the principality’s authorities estimated the population at 311,564 individuals (of which 293,527 Orthodox, 12,493 Muslims and 5,544 Catholics). On the eve of the Balkan wars, a figure of 285,000 was declared. The decrease was explained by the strong emigration, which in the first twelve years of the twentieth century had stolen an average of at least 5,000 individuals annually, only partially offset by the high birth rate.
The same authorities assumed for 1910 a figure of 238,423 residents within the limits of the same census territory, thus establishing a decrease of over 16%, the highest among all those of the SCS provinces (old Serbia 13.6%).
The vast majority were and are Montenegrins, Serbo-Croatian speakers and professors of Orthodoxy, today in the Serbian national church. According to the 1921 census the Serbs (Montenegrins) were over 90%, the Albanians 8% and the remaining Slovenes, Italians, Germans, other Slavs, gypsies, etc. Probably the figure of the Albanians was lower than the true one and higher than that of the Serbo-Montenegrins, as appears even if only considering that 11.5% of the residents declared themselves Muslims and 4% Catholics.
The population typically lives in small villages, both for reasons of natural environment and for easily understandable historical reasons. Much of it practices transhumant nomadism.
The most notable centers are Podgorica, with more than 10,000 residents and Nikšić, with a little less. The capital, Cettigne, had rapidly grown from 3200 residents in 1900 to over 5000 in 1912 and 8982 in 1931, but it has never exercised functions of demographic-economic agglomeration proper.
The coastal towns of Bar (Bar) and Ulcinj (Ulcinj) have about 5000 residents.