Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina (ⁱ/ˈbɒzniə ənd ˌhɛərtsəɡoʊˈviːnə, -ˌhɜːrt-, -ɡə-/ or /ˌhɜːrtsəˈɡɒvᵻnə/;Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian Latin script: Bosna i Hercegovina, Bosnian and Serbian Cyrillic script: Боснa и Херцеговина; pronounced [bôsna i xěrt͡seɡoʋina]), sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or Bosnia & Herzegovina, abbreviated BiH or B&H, and in short often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe located on the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west, and south; Serbia to the east; Montenegro to the southeast; and the Adriatic Sea to the south, with a coastline about 20 kilometres (12 miles) long surrounding the city of Neum. In the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, and the northeast is predominantly flatland. The inland is a geographically larger region and has a moderate continental climate, bookended by hot summers and cold and snowy winters. The southern tip of the country has a Mediterranean climate and plain topography.

Herzegovina

Herzegovina (/ˌhɛərtsᵻˈɡoʊvᵻnə/ or /ˌhɜːrtsəɡoʊˈviːnə/;Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: Hercegovina, Херцеговина, [xɛ̌rtsɛɡov̞ina]) is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian region, it is generally accepted that the borders of the region are Croatia to the southwest, Montenegro to the east, Mount Maglić to the northeast, and Mount Ivan to the north. Measurements of the area range from 11,419 km² (4,409 sq mi), or around 22% of the total area of the present-day country, to 12,276 km² (4,740 sq mi), around 24% of the country.

The name Herzegovina means "duke's land", referring to the medieval duchy of Stjepan Vukčić Kosača who took title "Herzeg of Saint Sava". Herceg is derived from the German title Herzog.

Geography

The terrain of Herzegovina is mostly hilly karst with high mountains in the north such as Čvrsnica and Prenj, except for the central valley of the river Neretva River. The largest city is Mostar, in the center of the region. Other larger towns include Trebinje, Stolac, Široki Brijeg, Konjic, and Čapljina. Borders between Bosnia and Herzegovina are unclear and often disputed.

Republika Srpska

The Republika Srpska (Serbian Cyrillic: Република Српскa, pronounced [repǔblika sr̩̂pskaː]) is an administrative entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is one of two administrative entities, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The de jure capital of Republika Srpska is Sarajevo, the de facto capital is Banja Luka.

Name

In the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages, Republika Srpska means "Serb Republic". The second word is a nominalized adjective derived by adding the suffix -ska to srb-, the root of the noun Srbin, meaning Serb. The -ps- sequence rather than -bs- is a result of voicing assimilation. Although the name Republika Srpska is sometimes glossed as Serb Republic or Bosnian Serb Republic (Serbian: Republika Bosanskih Srba / Република Босанских Срба), and the government of Republika Srpska uses the semi-Anglicized term Republic of Srpska in English translations of official documents, western news sources such as the BBC,The New York Times, and The Guardian generally refer to the entity as the Republika Srpska.

Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian: Republika Bosna i Hercegovina, Република Босна и Херцеговина) was the direct legal predecessor to the modern-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina existed legally until co-signing the Annex 4 of the Dayton Agreement, containing the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 14 December 1995, but official documents reveal that the state existed up until the end of 1997 when the implementation of the Dayton Agreement was finished and only then it fully came into effect. Most of this period is taken up by the Bosnian War, in which each of the two other main ethnicities of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats) established their own entities (Republika Srpska and Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia respectively), which left the republic representative primarily of its Bosniak population. By the Washington Agreement of 1994, however, Bosniaks were joined by ethnic Bosnian Croats in support for the Republic by the formation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a sub-state joint entity. In 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords joined the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Serb entity, the Republika Srpska into the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bosnian War

The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following a number of violent incidents in early 1992, the war is commonly viewed as having started on 6 April 1992. The war ended on 14 December 1995. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and those of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia, who were led and supplied by Serbia and Croatia respectively.

The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Following the Slovenian and Croatian secessions from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, the multi-ethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was inhabited by mainly Muslim Bosniaks (44 percent), mainly Orthodox Serbs (32.5 percent) and mainly Catholic Croats (17 percent), passed a referendum for independence on 29 February 1992.

This was rejected by the political representatives of the Bosnian Serbs, who had boycotted the referendum and established their own republic. Following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence (which gained international recognition), the Bosnian Serbs, supported by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), mobilised their forces inside the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to secure Serb territory, then war soon spread across the country, accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of the Bosniak Muslim and Croat population, especially in eastern Bosnia and throughout the Republika Srpska.