Belgrade Okrug occupied territory much wider than the city itself, and was divided into the srez of Kolubara (seated in Šopić), Kosmaj (Sopot), Podunavlje (Grocka), Posavina (Ostružnica) and Turija (Darosava).

The city had no officially named streets at the time, so the houses were numbered by the quarter to which they belonged.

The Vračar Srez covered the area directly surrounding the city itself, including the villages of Banjica, Beli Potok, Jajinci, Kaluđerica, Kumodraž, Leštane, Mali Mokri Lug, Mirijevo, Pinosava, Rakovica, Resnik, Rušanj, Slanci Veliki Mokri Lug, Vinča and Višnjica from Podunavlje and Kneževac, Žarkovo and Železnik from Posavina.

Additions to Vračar included Ostružnica on 14 March 1861, Ripanj on 14 February 1886 and Zuce in 1890, while Topčider was transferred from Podunavlje directly under the Belgrade administration, becoming part of the city on 1 July 1863.

[4] In December 1859, mayor of Belgrade, at that time called "city administrator", Nikola Hristić, again suggested the division of Belgrade into quarters, which would move the city further from the oriental way of administration and mark the beginning of the modern, European way of local governing.

Ministry of interior forwarded his request to the State Council and to Prince of Serbia Miloš Obrenović.

24 July] 1860, Prince Miloš signed ukaz by which Belgrade, with some 3,000 houses at the time, was divided into six quarters.

[7] By the 1883 census, the city had a population of 36,177, or by the quarters: Palilula 7,118, Terazije 6,333, Vračar 5,965, Dorćol 5,728, Savamala 5,547 and Varoš 4,519.

[8][9] Additional quarter called Grad (Town), which occupied the fortress area while it was inhabited, existed between the censuses of 1890 and 1910,[10] before being abolished on 24 August 1913.

[4] After the administrative reforms on 25 November 1889 (concerning municipalities) and 15 March 1890 (administrative division), Belgrade Okrug merged with Smedervo Okrug into Podunavlje Okrug while Vračar Srez consisted of 16 municipalities and 22 settlements in total, all of which were villages: Beli Potok (including Selo Rakovica), Kumodraž, Leštane (including Zuce), Mali Mokri Lug, Mirijevo, Pinosava, Resnik, Ripanj, Rušanj, Slanci, Veliki Mokri Lug, Veliko Selo, Vinča, Višnjica, Žarkovo and Železnik.

[7] In the 1918-1921 period, after the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the division was kept and the Belgrade Okrug was restored to its pre-1913 borders.

After the 6 January Dictatorship was introduced by the king Alexander I of Yugoslavia in 1929, part of the 1922 statute was abolished and the opposition's third in the city assembly was allocated by the prerogative of the Minister of the Interior.

[14] The area of the city was divided into 14 quarters (including the original 6),[7] for the purposes of the more effective administration, police and courts.

[4] The okrug in this period included 9 srez: Belgrade [Municipality], Grocka, Umka, Sopot, Lazarevac, Mladenovac, Smederevo, [Smederevska] Palanka and Veliko Orašje.

[15] Yugoslav Partisans in time formed their own administrative bodies, called people's liberation boards (NOO).

[4] After the World War II liberation, new Communist authorities abolished the quarters on formed 14 raions in November 1944.

In June 1945, NOO's for the neighborhoods, as parts of the raions (mimicking the former quarters), were formed, but were abolished in December 1946.

[4] Constituent municipalities of the surrounding okrugs were:[4][16] On 29 May 1952 city was reorganized into 23 municipalities: 14 urban (Voždovac, Vračar, Zvezdara, Lekino Brdo, Neimar, New Belgrade, Palilula, Savski Venac, Skadarlija, Stari Grad, Stari Đeram, Terazije, Topčidersko Brdo, Čukarica); 8 suburban (Bežanija, Borča, Žarkovo, Železnik, Krnjača, Ovča, Padinska Skela, Rakovica and Zemun.

[17][18][19] The core consisting of 10 urban municipalities remained unchanged since then: Čukarica, New Belgrade, Palilula, Rakovica, Savski Venac, Stari Grad, Voždovac, Vračar, Zemun and Zvezdara.

Srez' in the entire state were abolished on 13 March 1967 and Belgrade City began to fully operate as one administrative unit over its municipalities.

[4] Municipalities of Lazarevac (14) and Mladenovac (15) were administratively annexed to Belgrade in November 1970, finishing the formation of the present city territory.

In May 2019 the changed Law on the Capital City was adopted in the National Assembly of Serbia but it made no distinction between two zones, urban and suburban, and the official name of the suburban municipalities remained "City Municipality of...", though some of the regulations point to somewhat different jurisdiction between the two.