Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina (in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: Bosna i Hercegovina, Босна и Херцеговина, abbreviated to BiH, БиХ) is a country on the Balkan peninsula. It borders Croatia to the north and to the west, Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the south and has a narrow access to the Adriatic Sea. The capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina is Sarajevo. The country has 51 187 km² and 4 621 598 inhabitants (July 2010 est.).

Due to its complex inheritance from former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina obtained hardly its independence in 1992 and has become a quite motley state, recognizing three constituent nationalities, one language with three names and two autonomous regions.

• The citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are officially called “Bosnians”. They comprise three, main “constituent nationalities”:
  • Bosniaks (or, unofficially, “Muslims”, 48%), whose main religious culture is Islam (the terms “Bosnians”, for the citizens of the whole state, and “Bosniaks”, for the ethnic group, are often confused).
  • Croats (14,3%), whose main religious culture is Catholicism.
  • Serbs (37,1%), whose main religious culture is Orthodoxy.
• The official language of the state is Serbo-Croatian, officially “designated by one of the three terms: Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian” (according to the 1993 language law). “Both alphabets, Latin and Cyrillic, are equal” (according to the same law).
• The state of Bosnia and Herzegovina (as it is officially named) comprises the two following autonomous regions, called “entities”:
  • The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is also called, in order to avoid confusion with the whole state, Muslim-Croat Federation or Bosniak-Croat Federation. It lies in the center and the west. It is mainly inhabited by Bosniaks (Muslims) and Croats.
  • The Republika Srpska, in the east and the north. It is mainly inhabited by Serbs.
  • It has to be noted that the little Brčko District is shared by both entities.