Portal:Bosnia and Herzegovina

Welcome to the Bosnia and Herzegovina Portal

Bosnia and Herzegovina, often referred to as Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to the north and southwest, with a 20-kilometre-long (12-mile) coast on the Adriatic Sea in the south. Bosnia has a moderate continental climate with hot summers and cold, snowy winters. Its geography is largely mountainous, particularly in the central and eastern regions, which are dominated by the Dinaric Alps. Herzegovina, the smaller, southern region, has a Mediterranean climate and is mostly mountainous. Sarajevo is the capital and the largest city.

The area has been inhabited since at least the Upper Palaeolithic, with permanent human settlement traced to the Neolithic cultures of Butmir, Kakanj, and Vučedol. After the arrival of the first Indo-Europeans, the area was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilisations. Most of modern Bosnia was incorporated into the Roman province of Dalmatia by the mid-first century BCE. The ancestors of the modern South Slavic peoples arrived between the sixth and ninth centuries. In the 12th century, the Banate of Bosnia was established as the first independent Bosnian polity. It gradually evolved and expanded into the Kingdom of Bosnia, which became the most powerful state in the western Balkans by the 14th century. The Ottoman Empire annexed the region in 1463 and introduced Islam. From the late 19th century until World War I, the country was annexed into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In the interwar period, Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After World War II, it was granted full republic status in the newly formed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1992, following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the republic proclaimed independence. This was followed by the Bosnian War, which lasted until late 1995 and ended with the signing of the Dayton Agreement.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has roughly 2.9 million inhabitants based on the current estimates, composed chiefly of three main ethnic groups: Bosniaks, who form more than a half of the population, followed by Serbs at one-third and Croats at one-sixth; minorities include Jews, Roma, Albanians, Montenegrins, Ukrainians and Turks, who are among 17 recognized "national minorities". Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral legislature and a presidency made up of one member from each of the three major ethnic groups (directorial system). The central government's power is minimal, as the country is largely decentralised; it comprises two autonomous entities—the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska—and a third unit, the Brčko District, governed by its own local government.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a developing country and an upper-middle income economy, dominated by industry and agriculture, followed by tourism and services; tourism has increased significantly in recent years. The country has a social security and universal healthcare system, while primary and secondary education is free. It is a member of the United Nations, Council of Europe, OSCE, CEFTA, and is also a founding member of the SEECP. Bosnia and Herzegovina has been an EU candidate country since 2022, and a NATO membership candidate since 2010. (Full article...)

Selected article -

Flag of Republika Srpska

The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Serbian: Срби у Босни и Херцеговини, romanized: Srbi u Bosni i Hercegovini), sometimes referred to as Bosnian Serbs, are one of the three constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to data from the 2013 census, the population of ethnic Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina was 1,086,733, constituting 30.8% of the total population; they are the second-largest ethnic group in the country (after Bosniaks) and live predominantly in the political-territorial entity of Republika Srpska.

Serbs have a long history of inhabiting the present-day territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as long history of statehood in that territory. Slavs settled the Balkans in the 6th century and the Serbs were one of the main tribes who settled the peninsula including parts of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. Parts of Bosnia were ruled by the Serbian prince Časlav in the 10th century while the southeastern and eastern parts became integrated into the Serbian medieval state under the Nemanjić dynasty by the 13th-14th centuries. After the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the majority of the Orthodox Christian population in the region retained their Serbian ethnic and religious identity under the restored Serbian Patriarchate of Peć, while many landowners converted to Islam. Throughout the period of Ottoman rule, the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formed the core of several major uprisings against Ottoman rule. In 1878, following the Congress of Berlin, Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, facing resistance from the Serb population, which increasingly aspired to unification with the Kingdom of Serbia, culminating in growing tensions that contributed to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which led to the outbreak of World War I. (Full article...)

General images

The following are images from various Bosnia and Herzegovina-related articles on Wikipedia.

More did you know

Cities

Selected biography -

Seal of King Tvrtko I

Stephen Tvrtko I (Serbo-Croatian: Stjepan/Stefan Tvrtko / Стјепан/Стефан Твртко; c. 1338 – 10 March 1391) was the first king of Bosnia. A member of the House of Kotromanić, he succeeded his uncle Stephen II as the ban of Bosnia in 1353. As he was a minor at the time, Tvrtko's father, Vladislav, briefly ruled as regent, followed by Tvrtko's mother, Jelena. Early in his personal rule, Tvrtko quarrelled with his country's Roman Catholic clergy but later enjoyed cordial relations with all the religious communities in his realm. After initial difficulties—the loss of large parts of Bosnia to his overlord, King Louis I of Hungary, and being briefly deposed by his magnates—Tvrtko's power grew considerably. He conquered some remnants of the neighbouring Serbian Empire in 1373, after the death of its last ruler and his distant relative, Uroš the Weak. In 1377, he had himself crowned king of Bosnia and Serbia, claiming to be the heir of Serbia's extinct Nemanjić dynasty.

As the Kingdom of Bosnia continued to expand, Tvrtko's attention shifted to the Adriatic coast. He gained control of the entire Primorje region and the major maritime cities of the area, established new settlements and started building a navy, but never succeeded in subjugating the lords of the independent Serbian territories. The death of King Louis and the accession of Queen Mary in 1382 allowed Tvrtko to take advantage of the ensuing succession crisis in Hungary and Croatia. After bitter fighting, from 1385 to 1390, Tvrtko succeeded in conquering large parts of Dalmatia, and Croatia proper. Following the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, his tenuous claim to Serbia became a mere fiction, as the Serbian rulers he sought to subdue became vassals of the victorious Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks also launched their first attacks on Bosnia during Tvrtko's reign, but his army was able to repel them. Tvrtko's sudden death in 1391 prevented him from solidifying the Kotromanić hold on Croatian lands. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated)

Subcategories

Select [►] to view subcategories
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina templates
Republika Srpska
Bosnia and Herzegovina-related lists
Buildings and structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Disasters in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Geography of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Health in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Natural history of Bosnia and Herzegovina
History of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Organizations based in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina people
Politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Transport in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Images of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina stubs

Religions in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Ex-Yugoslav countries

Other countries

Topics

Recognized content

Things you can do

Web resources

Other links:

  • Bosnian National Monument - Muslibegovica House
  • "Bosnia and Herzegovina". The World Factbook (2025 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency.
  • Bosnia & Herzegovina Economy
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina Map
  • Bosnia News
  • rjecnik.ba English-Bosnian and German-Bosnian On-line Dictionary (in Bosnian, English, and German)
  • The State of Media Freedom in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Public Service Broadcasting Report by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.