Bosnia and Herzegovina

Where the name comes from

Bosnia is named after the Bosna River; Herzegovina means “the duke’s land”, from German Herzog, “duke”, and the Slavic ending -ovina.

First people

Farmers of the Neolithic Butmir culture lived near Sarajevo about 7,000 years ago, and Illyrian tribes followed.¹

Known for

The country is known for the Old Bridge of Mostar, an Ottoman arch from 1566 rebuilt after it was destroyed in 1993.²

Outside contact

Medieval Bosnia fell to the Ottomans in 1463; Austria-Hungary occupied it in 1878 and annexed it in 1908.³

The modern country

Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of Yugoslavia’s six republics before independence in 1992. The 1995 Dayton agreement ended the war and kept one state with two entities, sharing power among Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs.^4,5,6