Belgrade is the capital of Serbia, having about 1,6 million inhabitants. It is located in the south-east of Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula. The area around two great rivers, the Sava （萨瓦河）and the Danube （多瑙河）has been inhabited as early as palaeolithic period （旧石器时代）. Belgrade, a city of very tumultuous history, is one of the oldest cities in Europe. Its history lasts full 7,000 years. Since ancient times it has been an important traffic focal point, an intersection of the roads of Eastern and Western Europe.

Belgrade is the capital of Serbian culture, education, science and economy. As a result of its tumultuous （喧嚣的）history, many nations live in Belgrade for centuries, and the majority of the population make Serbs (86%) of Orthodox persuasion. The official language is Serbian, while foreigners are recommended to use English in communication.

The City of Belgrade is the founder, financer and organizer of many regular annual cultural events. Most of the authors from all fields of culture and art live and work in Belgrade, the center of culture and art of Serbia and Yugoslavia （南斯拉夫）. Belgrade has also hosted the famous world authors and performers in the fields of music, theatre, film... The only Serbian Nobel laureate, Ivo Andri?, has created some of his greatest literary works right here, in Belgrade.

The most important works of architecture, monuments and other immovable cultural properties of the Serbian people are in most part located in Belgrade. It is also the seat of the highest state and national institutions of culture and art: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, National Library of Serbia, National Museum, National Theatre and the University of Art.

In the Belgrade area, there are many archaeological （考古的）sites with material remains, witnessing of the culture of the late Stone Age and other prehistoric cultures, until the Middle Ages.

Belgrade is a fast-paced modern European capital, successfully banishing the shadows of war. A visit here is all about enjoying the modern architecture, dynamic atmosphere and excellent nightlife, Belgrade is best seen from the water - the city has a beautiful setting at the confluence （汇合）of the Sava and Danube rivers.

The sky above Belgrade is wide and high, unstable but always beautiful; even during winter serenities （平静）with their icy splendour; even during summer storms when the whole of it turns into a single gloomy cloud which, driven by the mad wind, carries the rain mixed with the dust of panonian plain; even in spring when it seems that it also blooms, along with the ground; even in autumn when it grows heavy with the autumn stars in swarms. Always beautiful and rich, as a compensation to this strange town for everything that isn't there, and a consolation because of everything that shouldn't be there.

But the greatest splendour of that sky above Belgrade, that are the sunsets. In autumn and in summer, they are broad and bright like desert mirages （海市蜃楼）, and in winter they are smothered （窒息）by murky clouds and dark red hazes （薄雾）. And in every time of year frequently come the days when the flame of that sun setting in the plain, between the rivers beneath Belgrade, gets reflected way up in the high celestial （天上的）dome, and it breaks there and pours down over the scattered town. Then, for a moment, the reddish tint of the sun paints even the remotest corners of Belgrade and reflects into the windows, even of those houses it otherwise poorlyilluminates （照亮）.

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