Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country in Europe, known for its Ottoman bridges and mountain villages. It has a population of over 3 million, making it the 136th largest country in the world. Its capital is Sarajevo. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a developing economy with growing industrial sector.
* As of 6/9/2025
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Bosnia and Herzegovina (also called Bosnia-Herzegovina BiH or just Bosnia) is a small country in Southeast Europe with 12 miles of coastline on the Adriatic Sea.
Bosnia has one of the highest life expectancy, education and literacy rates in the area and it has the third highest tourism growth rate globally between 1995 and 2020. There are three ethnic groups in Bosnia, with all citizens being identified as a Bosnian. Bosnian and Herzegovinian are used to designate region, not ethnicity.
The three ethnic groups are Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. According to 2000 information from the CIA, the ethnic breakdown is 48% Bosniak, 37% Serbs, 14% Croats and 0.6% other.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has no official state religion and allows for religious freedom, however religious intolerance and discrimination exist against religious minorities. Just over half of the population practice Islam, Orthodox Christians make up 31% of the population and Catholicism is practiced by an additional 15%. No one religion has been the target of discrimination and it remains a problem in nearly all communities.
Since the 1990s the open economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been doing really well. The biggest challenge their economy faces us their economic model which is imbalanced between public policies that are favor public over the private sector, consumption is valued over investment, and imports are more valued than exports. This will need to shift in order for the country to maintain its current fiscal situation.
A few years before the precipitation of World War I, Bosnia Herzegovina was annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Following the collapse of Austria-Hungary post-war, Bosnia Herzegovina became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1941, a pro-Hitler Croatian state annexed the country and sent thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies to concentration camps. They were liberated in 1945 and were a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until 1991 when communism fell.
By 1992, Croat and Muslim nationalists allied to outvote Serbs at an independence referendum, leading to another war outbreak with widespread casualties and deportations. In 1995, Bosnian Serb forces overrun the haven of Srebrenica and killed 8,000 Muslims and soon after the Dayton peace accord was created leading to two equally sized entities for the Bosnian Muslims and Croats, respectively. This was later declared genocide by the International Court of Justice, but Serbia was cleared of responsibility, forcing former Bosnian Serb leaders to flee. Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and Serbs reached a peace agreement in 2011. In 2014, the worst flood in modern history left one-quarter of the population without clean water and half a million people without homes.