Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The South Slavs, who are all descended from the same ancestors and speak closely re-
lated languages, are distinguished by their religious practices. Roman Catholic
Croats
or
Slovenes
are found mostly west of the Dinaric Mountains (Croats along the Adriatic coast
and Slovenes farther north, in the Alps); Orthodox Christian
Serbs
live mostly east of the
Dinaric range; and Muslim
Bosniaks
(whose ancestors converted to Islam under the Otto-
mans) live mostly in the Dinaric Mountains. Two other, smaller Orthodox ethnicities have
been influenced by other large groups: the
Montenegrins
(shaped by centuries of Croatian
and Venetian Catholicism) and the
Macedonians
(with ties to Bulgarians and Greeks). To
complicate matters, the region is also home to several non-Slavic minority groups, includ-
