Little War Island or Malo Ratno Ostrvo (Serbian Cyrillic: Мало Ратно Острво) is a river island (ada) in Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

, located at the mouth of the Sava river into the Danube

Danube

The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

. It is part of the Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 City proper, the capital of Serbia, and belongs to the municipality of Zemun

Zemun

Zemun is a historical town and one of the 17 municipalities which constitute the City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia...

.

Location

The island is located between the southern bank of the Great War Island

Great War Island

Great War Island is a river island in Belgrade, capital of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of Sava and Danube rivers. Though uninhabited, the island is part of the Belgrade City proper, and belongs to the city municipality of Zemun.-Location:...

 and the right bank of the Danube in the municipality of Novi Beograd

Novi Beograd

Novi Beograd or New Belgrade is the most populous municipality that constitutes the City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is a planned city, built in 1947 on the left bank of the Sava river which was previously an uninhabited area, opposite of the old Belgrade...

 (the neighborhood of Ušće

Ušce (Belgrade)

Ušće is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Novi Beograd. Ušće is located on the mouth of the Sava river into the Danube, thus the name...

), just 200 meters away from the Sava's confluence into the Danube.

Characteristics

The island used to be significantly larger before the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. When construction of Novi Beograd began in 1948, the sand from the island was transported to the mainland by large conveyor belt

Conveyor belt

A conveyor belt consists of two or more pulleys, with a continuous loop of material - the conveyor belt - that rotates about them. One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt and the material on the belt forward. The powered pulley is called the drive pulley while the unpowered pulley...

s and used for covering the swamp on which the new city was to be built. In the process, the island shrank, and sometimes it is poetically said today that "Novi Beograd is a city on the island".

What's left of the island is basically a thin strip of land, less than 300 meters long and 60 meters wide. The island is completely covered by vegetation (poplar trees) and inaccessible for visitors, but can be nicely observed from the barge

Barge

A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats...

s-restaurants on the Danube's bank.