Etymology and evolving meaning
The region takes its name from the Stara Planina (Old Mountain) mountain range in Bulgaria and partly in Serbia, commonly known as the Balkan Mountains (likely from the Turkish balkan meaning "a chain of wooded mountains").[1] The name is still preserved in Central Asia where there exist the
Balkan Mountains[SUP]
[12][/SUP] and the
Balkan Province of
Turkmenistan. On a larger scale, the mountains are only one part of a long continuous chain of mountains crossing the region in the form of a reversed letter S, from the Carpathians south to the Balkan range proper, before marching away east into Anatolian Turkey. On the west coast, an offshoot of the Dinaric Alps follows the coast south through Dalmatia and Albania, crosses Greece and continues into the sea in the form of various islands.
The first attested time the name "Balkan" was used in the West for the mountain range in Bulgaria was in a letter sent in 1490 to Pope Innocent VIII by Buonaccorsi Callimaco, an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat.[13] English traveler John Morritt introduced this term into the English literature at the end of the 18th century, and other authors started applying the name to the wider area between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The concept of the "Balkans" was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808,[14] yet the peninsula of the region had the name "Peninsula of Haemus" since Antiquity.
As time passed, the term gradually obtained political connotations far from its initial geographic meaning, arising from political changes from the late 19th century to the creation of post–World War I Yugoslavia (initially the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes). Zeune's goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer, and, to a large extent, due to oscillating political circumstances.
After the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term "Balkans" again received a negative meaning, even in casual usage (see Balkanization). Over the last decade, in the wake of the former Yugoslav split, many Slovenians and Croatians, as well as Serbs of Vojvodina have attempted to reject their label as Balkan nations.[15]
The Western Balkan states according to the European Union
This is in part due to the pejorative connotation of the term "Balkans" in the 1990s, and continuation of this meaning until now. Today, the term "Southeast Europe" is often used or, in the case of Slovenia and Croatia, "Central Europe" and Greece has almost exclusively been regarded and referred to as a Southern European country.
Mount Arlan (
Uly Balkan Gerşi) is an 1,880 metre peak in the western plains of Turkmenistan in Balkan Province. Mount Arlan stands about 2,000 metres above the shore of the below-sea level Caspian Sea. It is the highest point of the Balkan Daglary range. The town of Balkanabat, the capital of Balkan Province, lies 25 km to the southwest.
Balkan Province (Turkmen: Balkan welaýaty, Russian: Балканский Велаят, from the Persian
بلخان Balkhān) is one of the Welayat (provinces) of Turkmenistan. It is in the far west of the country, bordering Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, and Iran. Its capital is Balkanabat, formerly known as Nebit Dag. It has an area of 139,270 square kilometers and a population of approximately 553,500 people (2005 est.).[SUP][1][/SUP] Its population density of 3.3 persons per square kilometer is the lowest in Turkmenistan. Other cities include: Türkmenbaşy, Gumdag, Serdar, Hazar, Gyzyletrek, Esenguly. Balkan Province has significant energy reserves, which account for 94% of Turkmenistan's natural gas production and 12% of its petroleum production. It also generates 18% of the country's electric power. Due to the very low water supply, agriculture is negligible, and only 4.5% of Turkmenistan's arable lands are within the province.
Off its Caspian shores the Balkan Province includes the island of Ogurja Ada, the most important island in Turkmenistan and one of the largest in the Caspian Sea.