FACTBOX - Montenegro signs key accord with European Union

(Reuters) - Following is a profile of Montenegro.

The small Adriatic republic, the world's newest independent state, signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union on Monday, its first step to EU membership.

HISTORY

The area of present-day Montenegro was populated by Slavs in the 6th century, evolving into a feudal state that went in and out of Byzantine and later Ottoman control. It developed a unique system of administration, combining the rule of prince-bishops and national and clan councils.

It proclaimed itself a kingdom in 1910 but was incorporated into Serbia after World War One. In 1945 it became one of six republics in the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia.

It stayed with Serbia when Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia and Bosnia declared independence in the early 1990s in the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia. The rump Yugoslavia was renamed State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in 2003. Montenegro voted to leave the union in May 2006 and declared independence in June.

ETHNIC MAKE-UP

Of Montenegro's 650,000 people, 43.2 percent say they are Montenegrin, 32 percent Serb, 7.7 percent Bosnian, 5 percent Albanian and 4 percent Muslim. The rest mark themselves "other".

The official language is the Montenegro variant of Serbian, increasingly called Montenegrin, which has much in common with Bosnian and Croatian. Albanian is the second official language in areas where Albanians make up the majority of the population.