Vojvodina's demographic history reflects its rich history in invasions, colonizations and assimilation processes. Currently there are more than 25 ethnic groups living in Vojvodina and six official languages.
The area of Vojvodina has been inhabited since the Paleolithic period. Before the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC, Illyrian, Thracian and Celtic tribes inhabited the region.
During the Roman rule, original inhabitants were heavily Romanized, and latter they are known under name of Vlachs. Original population didn't entirely disappeared, meaning that they left certain genetic traces into the modern Serbian and Romanian populations.
Vojvodina was invaded by Turanic nomads such as the Huns and Avars, as well as Finno-Ugric Hungarians and Germanic Gepids and Langobards, but they were not in great numbers, so after their military decayed, they were quickly absorbed by the local population, without leaving much ethnic traces in population of the region.
During the early medieval migrations, Slavs (Severans, Abodrites, Branicevci and Serbs) settled today's Vojvodina in the 6th and 7th centuries, but pockets of Romanised population remained in the area. Until the 13th century, the region had dominant Slavic population.
After Vojvodina was conquered by the Hungarian Kingdom, Hungarians started to settle in this region in larger number in the 13th century and Hungarization of Slavic population followed this. By the 16th century most of local Slavs were Hungarized.
An increasing number of Serbs began settling from the 14th century onward. By 1483, according to a Hungarian source, as much as half of the population of Vojvodina territory at the time would have been made up of Serbs.
The Ottomans took control of the region in the 16th century. This was followed by expulsion of most (but not all) of inhabitants of the region (Serbs and Hungarians). The majority of those who left in the region were Serbs, mainly now engaging either in farming or military service. Under Ottoman policy, many Serbs were newly settled in the northern places of the region. During the Ottoman rule, more than 90% of inhabitants of the region were Serbs.
The Habsburg Empire took control of Vojvodina among other lands by the treaties of Karlowitz (1699) and Passarowitz (1718). After 1718, new settlers (mainly Germans and Hungarians) started to settle in the region. That was the reason why Serbs lost absolute ethnic majority in the region.
Still, Serbs were the largest ethnic group in the region until 1918, when Vojvodina become part of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. After the liberation (in 1918), new Serbian settlers started to come to the region. In 1948 census, Serbs were absolute majority in Vojvodina again (51%), and this percent rose to 65% in 2002 census.
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