The Beograd class of destroyers consisted of three ships built for the Yugoslav Royal Navy in the late 1930s, a variant of the French Bourrasque class. Beograd was constructed in France, and Zagreb and Ljubljana were built in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In January 1940, Ljubljana struck a reef off the port of Šibenik and was still under repair when the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia commenced in April 1941. During the invasion, Zagreb was scuttled to prevent its capture, and the Italians captured the other two ships. The Royal Italian Navy operated Beograd and Ljubljana as convoy escorts between Italy, the Aegean Sea, and North Africa, under the names Sebenico and Lubiana respectively. Lubiana was lost in the Gulf of Tunis in April 1943; Sebenico was seized by the Germans in September 1943 after the Italian surrender and was subsequently operated by the German Navy as TA43. There are conflicting reports about the fate of TA43, but it was lost in the war's final weeks.

In 1967, a French film was made about the scuttling of Zagreb. In 1973, the President of Yugoslavia and wartime Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito posthumously awarded the two officers who scuttled Zagreb with the Order of the People's Hero.

Following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the conclusion of World War I, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KSCS) was created. Austria-Hungary transferred the vessels of the former Austro-Hungarian Navy to the new nation. The Kingdom of Italy was unhappy with this and convinced the Allies to share the Austro-Hungarian ships among the victorious powers. As a result, the only modern sea-going vessels left to the KSCS were 12 torpedo boats, and it had to build its naval forces almost from scratch.

The name of the state was changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. In the early 1930s, the Yugoslav Royal Navy (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Kraljevska mornarica; Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Краљевска морнарица; KM) pursued the flotilla leader concept, which involved building large destroyers similar to the World War I Royal Navy V and W-class destroyers, and drew on the experience of the French Navy during the Adriatic Campaign of World War I. In the interwar French Navy, these ships were intended to operate with smaller destroyers, or as half-flotillas of three ships. The Royal Yugoslav Navy decided to build three such flotilla leaders, ships that could reach high speeds and have long endurance. The endurance requirement reflected Yugoslav plans to deploy the ships to the central Mediterranean, where they would be able to operate alongside French and British warships. This resulted in the construction of the destroyer Dubrovnik in 1930–1931. Soon after she was ordered, the onset of the Great Depression meant that only one ship of the planned half-flotilla was ever built.

Although the other two planned large destroyers would not be built, the idea that Dubrovnik might operate with several smaller destroyers persisted. In 1934, buoyed by a special credit of 500 million dinars for an enlargement and modernisation program, the KM decided to acquire three such destroyers to operate in a division led by Dubrovnik. The Beograd class was a variant of the French Bourrasque class, which had a strong main battery hampered by a slow rate-of-fire and combined with a weak anti-submarine suite. The French design was also top-heavy, and the forward section of the hull was too narrow, resulting in a wet forecastle in any sea state. These characteristics were combined with limited endurance.

The name ship of the class, Beograd, was built by Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire at Nantes, France. In contrast, the remaining ships of the class, Zagreb and Ljubljana, were built by Jadranska brodogradilišta at Split, Yugoslavia, under French supervision. Two more ships of the class were planned but not built. The Jadranska brodogradilišta shipyard at Kraljevica was responsible for the construction and delivery of boilers and other machinery.

The ships had an overall length of 98 m (321 ft 6 in), a beam of 9.45 m (31 ft 0 in), and a normal draught of 3.18 m (10 ft 5 in). Their standard displacement was 1,210 tonnes (1,190 long tons), increasing to 1,655 tonnes (1,629 long tons) at full load. Beograd was powered by Curtis steam turbines, and Zagreb and Ljubljana used Parsons steam turbines. Regardless of the turbines used, they drove two propellers, using steam generated by three Yarrow water-tube boilers. Their turbines were rated at 40,000–44,000 shp (30,000–33,000 kW) and they were designed to propel the ships at a top speed of 38–39 knots (70–72 km/h; 44–45 mph), although they were only able to reach a practical top speed of 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) in service. They carried 120 tonnes (120 long tons) of fuel oil, which gave them a radius of action of 1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km; 1,200 mi). Their crews consisted of 145 personnel, including officers and enlisted men.

Main armament consisted of four Škoda 120 mm (4.7 in) L/46 superfiring guns in single mounts, two forward of the superstructure and two aft, protected by gun shields. Secondary armament consisted of four Škoda 40 mm (1.6 in) L/67 anti-aircraft guns in two twin-gun mounts, located on either side of the aft shelter deck. The ships were also equipped with two triple mounts of 550 mm (22 in) torpedo tubes and two machine guns. Their fire-control systems were provided by the Dutch firm of Hazemayer. As built, they could also carry 30 naval mines.