Belgrade, Serbia

🇷🇸 Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. According to the BBC, Belgrade is one of five most creative cities in the world.

Belgrade is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe and the World. One of the most important prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinča culture, evolved within the Belgrade area in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region and, after 279 BC, Celts settled the city, naming it Singidūn. It was conquered by the Romans under the reign of Augustus and awarded Roman city rights in the mid-2nd century.

Being Serbia's primate city, Belgrade has special administrative status within Serbia. It is the seat of the central government, administrative bodies, and government ministries, as well as home of almost all of the largest Serbian companies, media, and scientific institutions. The city is home to the Clinical Centre of Serbia, one of the hospital complexes with the largest capacity in the world, the Church of Saint Sava, one of the largest Orthodox church buildings, and the Štark Arena, one of the indoor arenas with the largest capacity in Europe.

Economy Belgrade is the financial centre of Serbia and Southeast Europe, with a total of 17 million square metres (180 million square feet) of office space. It is also home to the country's Central Bank. 750,550 people are employed (July 2020) in 120,286 companies, 76,307 enterprises and 50,000 shops. The City of Belgrade itself owns 267,147 square metres (2,875,550 square feet) of rentable office space. As of 2019, Belgrade contained 31.4% of Serbia's employed population and generated over 40.4% of its GDP. The city's nominal GDP in 2014 was estimated at 16.97 billion USD, amounting to 859,329 RSD ($10,086) per capita. City GDP in 2019 at purchasing power parity was estimated at $52.1bn USD, which was $32,572 per capita in terms of purchasing power parity.

New Belgrade is the country's Central business district and one of South-eastern Europe's financial centres. It offers a range of facilities, such as hotels, congress halls (e.g. Sava Centar), Class A and B office buildings, and business parks (e.g. Airport City Belgrade). Over 1.2 million square metres (13 million square feet) of land is under construction in New Belgrade, with the value of planned construction over the next three years estimated at over 1.5 billion euros. The Belgrade Stock Exchange is also located in New Belgrade, and has a market capitalisation of €6.5 billion (US$7.1 billion).

With 6,924 companies in the IT sector (according to 2013 data), Belgrade is one of the foremost information technology hubs in Southeast Europe. Microsoft's 'Development Center Serbia', located in Belgrade was, at the time of its establishment, the fifth such programme on the globe. Many global IT companies choose Belgrade as their European or regional centre of operations, such as Asus, Intel, Dell, Huawei, Nutanix, NCR etc. The most famous Belgrade IT startups, among others, are Nordeus, ComTrade Group, MicroE, FishingBooker, and Endava. IT facilities in the city include the Mihajlo Pupin Institute and the ILR, as well as the brand-new IT Park Zvezdara. Many prominent IT innovators began their careers in Belgrade, including Voja Antonić and Veselin Jevrosimović.

According Cushman & Wakefield, Knez Mihajlova street is 36th most expensive retail street in the world in terms of renting commercial space.