LAND
• Kosovo covers about 4,200 square miles — roughly the size of Connecticut — and borders Albania and Macedonia.
PEOPLE
• About 2 million — a vast majority of whom are ethnic Albanian (most are Muslim and the rest Catholic). The remaining residents are mainly Orthodox Christian Serbs.
STATUS
• Though it legally remains a province of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations and NATO since 1999, when Slobodan Milosevic’s forces were ousted after a NATO air war launched to end his crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
HISTORY
• Kosovo, the site of an epic battle between Serbs and Turks in 1389, is considered hallowed ground by Serbs and the birthplace of their identity. Ethnic Albanians say they are descendants of the ancient Ilyrians, Kosovo’s first inhabitants.
