The three regions of Montenegro and what each one offers

Montenegro has no counties, which puzzles people looking up its regions. What it has are 25 municipalities and three statistical regions that MONSTAT, the national statistics office, uses to group its data. They have no government and no regional capital, but I find them the best way to understand the country, because they line up with three very different trips.

Three regions that nobody governs

MONSTAT names its three regions after where they lie and defines each by the municipalities inside it. The coast is six, from Herceg Novi to Ulcinj. The centre is another six, with the capital, Podgorica, the old royal capital, Cetinje, plus Danilovgrad, Nikšić, Tuzi and Zeta. The north takes in thirteen, from Žabljak and Plužine to Rožaje, Plav and Gusinje.

Add up the municipal figures and the split is lopsided. The centre has 307,371 people, nearly half the country, and the coast 163,672, while the north, with more than half the land, has 152,590. Tourism runs the other way. Of the 2,606,854 arrivals recorded in 2024, 2,210,630 went to the coast.

The coast, where almost everyone goes

It’s the smallest region, 1,504 km² across its six municipalities, and the one where tourism is concentrated. It has the Bay of Kotor, on the UNESCO list since 1979, the Budva Riviera, the Luštica peninsula and Ulcinj’s sandy beaches. It also holds both the country’s smallest municipality, Tivat, and its busiest, Budva, with 848,515 arrivals in 2024. The whole region, towns and beaches included, is in the Montenegrin coast.

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The centre, the capital and the lake

The centre is where people live. Podgorica’s municipality has 179,505 residents, and Nikšić is the largest municipality in the country at 2,087 km². For a visitor, the best of it lies around the edges, at Lake Skadar, a national park since 1983, in Cetinje with its monastery and King Nikola’s palace, on Lovćen and at Ostrog Monastery. I wouldn’t treat it as somewhere to drive through. It’s covered in central Montenegro.

The north, mountain country

The north is the biggest region and the least visited, with 147,962 arrivals across its thirteen municipalities in 2024. Three of the five national parks are here, Durmitor, Biogradska Gora and Prokletije, along with the Tara Canyon and the ski areas of Kolašin and Žabljak. MONSTAT counted 71 days of snow cover in Kolašin in 2024, against none in Bar or Herceg Novi, which sums up the difference from the coast. See northern Montenegro.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Kotor and pick one that fits your day.

How I’d split them on a trip

The catch is that getting from one region to another means mountain roads, and you’ll be driving on the right throughout. Between the centre and the north, the Morača Canyon road carries its own Foreign Office warning for rain and heavy traffic. Rather than drive there and back in a day, I’d change hotel each time I changed region. The towns and municipalities, with what to see in each, are in cities in Montenegro, and where they all sit is in the map of Montenegro.

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