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Capital and largest city: Sarajevo

Official language(s): Bosniak, Croatian, Serbian

Area: 51,129 km� (19,741 mi�)

Population(July 2005 est): 4,025,476

GDP(2005 estimate): $28.26 billion, $6,800 per capita

HDI(2003): 0.786

Currency: convertible Mark (BAM)

Bosnia became separated from Serbia in 960, and during the 500-year Turkish occupation many Bosnians became Muslim. The recent break-up of Yugoslavia led to a Croat-Muslim alliance in support of independence in March 1992, which was immediately militarily contested by the Serb minority. The tragic three-sided war between Serbs,Croats and Bosnian Muslims caused immense damage, loss of life and the partition of Bosnia. The war ended in 1995 with the country almost equally divided between Serbs in the Serb Republic and the Croat-Muslim federation. An uneasy peace is maintained by NATO armies. (Quoted from Operation World ,2001, p115)

More information on the Bosnian War and Massacre can be found here

Ethnically the population is split into three groups; Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Bosniaks represent just under half of the population, Serbs around a third of the population, with the remaining population mostly Croats. Tensions between the three ethnical groups remain high in Bosnia and often provoke political disagreements. Each of the three peoples are influential to roughly the same degree: Bosniaks are the most numerous, Serbs have their own entity and despite being the smallest of the three groups, the Croats are the wealthiest and economically the strongest.

Nationalistic religions have taken the place of Communism in modern Bosnia as the prevailing ideology. They tend to be just as tyrannical and hostile to any 'traitorous' deviators and religious freedom is on the whole rather theoretical. There is a strong identity between ethnic background and religion. Just under 90% of Croats are Roman Catholic, a similar percentage of Bosniaks are Muslims, and around 93% of Serbs are Orthodox Christians.