Etymology
Crna Gora, sometimes transliterated as Tsrna Gora ("Black Mountain"), is used to denote a larger part of Montenegro in the 15th century. It had in the late 14th century only referred to a small strip of land of the Pastrovici, but eventually came to be used for a wider mountainous region after the Crnojević family in Upper Zeta.
The aforementioned region became known as Old Montenegro (Стара Црна Гора/Stara Crna Gora) by the 19th century to distinguish it from the newly acquired territory of Brda (The Highlands). Montenegro further increased its size several times by the 20th century as the result of wars against the Ottomans, which saw the annexation of Old Herzegovina and parts of Metohija and southern Rashka. The nation has changed little since that time, though it lost Metohija and gained the Bay of Kotor.
The country's name in most Western European languages reflects an adaptation of the Italian-Venetian calque monte negro (modern Italian would be monte nero), meaning "black mountain", which probably dates back to the era of Venetian hegemony over the area in the Middle Ages. Other languages, particularly nearby ones, use their own direct translation of the term "black mountain".
The ISO Alpha-2 code for Montenegro is ME and the Alpha-3 Code is MNE.
Read more about this topic: Montenegro
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