Bosnia and Herzegovina

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA was one of the component states of the former federation of Yugoslavia until it declared its independence in March 1992. Its ethnic and religious makeup had become so intertwined under the forced egalitarianism of Josip Tito that divisions and tensions between the country’s three major groups—Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats—immediately turned to violence, as each nationality sought to carve out a portion of the country’s territory for themselves.

The ensuing conflict caused the deaths of somewhere between 60,000 and 200,000 people and displaced about half the population. Since the peace agreements made in Dayton, Ohio, in December 1995, the country has been partitioned into two federated units, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic). Foreign troops sent in by the NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO) and by RUSSIA keep an uneasy balance, while the country’s overall administrative affairs are overseen by a EUROPEAN UNION high commissioner. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina occupies a mountainous central zone of the Balkan Peninsula, surrounded on all sides by other former members of Yugoslavia: CROATIA to the north and west, and SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO to the west and south. The country has a tiny outlet to the ADRIATIC SEA, 18 mi or 29 km, wedged between portions of the long Croatian (Dalmatian) coast.

Although some of its rivers flow westward into the Adriatic, notably the Neretva, most Bosnian rivers flow east and north from the watershed of the Dinaric Alps into the Danube basin. These include the Sava, which forms the northern border with Croatia, its tributary the Drina, which forms part of the eastern border with Serbia, and other tributaries of the Sava, the Vrbas, and the Bosna, which gives the country its name. The other half of the country’s name, Herzegovina, comes from an ancient feudal division of the region, this part being held by a duke (herzeg is a Slavic corruption of the German word for “duke,” herzog). 

Bosnia is much larger than Herzegovina, and although the population is mostly the same, the landscape is different. Herzegovina tends to be drier, rockier, with a Mediterranean climate, versus the more continental climate of the Bosnian interior. Sarajevo, the capital, is roughly in the center of the country, on the Bosna River. Other cities include Banja Luka, Tuzla, Bihac, and Mostar, the capital of Herzegovina. The only area of relative flatness are the plains along the Sava river valley in the far north.