Kosovo, a contested country and/or Serbian province, is the home of two principal ethnic groups, Albanian and Serbian, with historic roots to Slavonic, Albanian and Ottoman cultures. The country has four pronounced landscapes (the mountains of the Dinaric Alps and the Šar Planina, the Metohija Basin and the Plain of Kosovo) that are important factors in the development of the different types of vernacular architecture still found.

In 2008 Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. Today over 110 countries recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state, but it has not yet been accepted as an independent sovereign member state of the United Nations.