Yugoslav colonization of Kosovo

Over the course of the twentieth century, Kosovo experienced four major colonisation campaigns that aimed at altering the ethnic population balance in the region, to decrease the Albanian population and replace them with Serbs and Montenegrins. The colonisation programme began in the early twentieth century between the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro during the Balkan Wars and was later implemented by their successor state Yugoslavia at certain periods from the interwar era until 1999. Albanians formed the ethnic majority in the region when it became part of Yugoslavia in the early twentieth century.

Fears over Albanian separatism and the need to secure Kosovo, a strategic territory for the country drove the state to pursue colonisation as a solution. The Serbian political elite held the view that Kosovo was a former late medieval Serb territory that following the Ottoman conquest was settled by Albanians. As such, the colonisation process along with the displacement of Albanians and purchase of their property was understood as "a logical sequel to the liberation war", in which the four Balkan states defeated the Ottoman Empire.

The first brief attempts at colonisation were made by Montenegro and Serbia during the Balkan Wars and First World War. Following the end of the wars and the creation of Yugoslavia, the interwar period experienced the most colonisation activity. Between 60,000 and 65,000 colonists, of whom over 90% were Serbs, settled on the territory of the former Kosovo Vilayet captured from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. In addition to them, numbers of state bureaucrats and their families also settled in Kosovo.