Bosnia and Herzegovina

Said to be the most easterly point of the west and the most westerly point of the east. For centuries, its central location made it a crossroads where the Byzantine and Ottoman civilisations met Roman and Austro-Hungarian ones.

Travelling through the countryside and seeing the devastation that war brings will make you change the way you look at things. The people are extremely friendly, the prices are low, and it's still relatively unexploited by tourism.

Stunning old mosques and amphitheatres and Catholic shrines are just some of the wonderful architecture that is dotted about. The picturesque countryside varies from woodland to mountains to rolling hills.

Understanding the Geography

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country on the Balkan peninsula of southern Europe. The country is a homeland to three ethnic "constituent peoples": Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Regardless of ethnicity, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina is usually identified in English as a Bosnian. The country is decentralized and is administratively divided into two "entities", the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.

Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the south, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost entirely landlocked, except for 20 km of the Adriatic Sea coastline, centred around the town of Neum.

The interior of the country is heavily mountainous and divided by various rivers, most of which are nonnavigable. The nation's capital and largest city is Sarajevo.

Cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Sarajevo - Capital
• Zenica
• Banja Luka
• Gorazde
• Mostar
• Milici
• Tuzla
• Medjugorje

Climate Conditions

Hot summers and cold winters; areas of high elevation have short, cool summers and long, severe winters; mild, rainy winters along coast.

Understanding the Culture

Bosnia has a rich culture with many famous persons including poets, writers and a nobel prize winner in Chemistry. One of the famous writers is Ivo Andric, a Bosnian with Serbian ethnicity who won the Nobel Prize in literature. He wrote the very famous book, Bridge over Drina, which was the famous Ottoman bridge over the river Drina near Visegrad, a city in the eastern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He wrote about the Ottomans even though he was not partial to them.

Another famous Bosnian is the Nobel Prize winner Vladimir Prelog, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry 1975. He was born in Sarajevo in 1906 and was witness to the famous assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the assassination that started World War I.