Bosnia and Herzegovina
POPULATION 3,964,388
MUSLIM 40 percent
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN 31 percent
ROMAN CATHOLIC 15 percent
PROTESTANT 4 percent
OTHER 10 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a largely mountainous country located in the west-central part of the Balkan Peninsula. The population consists of three principal ethnic-religious groups—Bosnians (Muslim), Serbs (Orthodox Christian), and Croats (Roman Catholic). From 1918 to the early 1990s Bosnia and Herzegovina was a part of Yugoslavia. Following a declaration of independence in 1992, the country suffered fierce warfare. In 1995 a peace agreement was reached that established two divisions within the country—a Bosnian-Croat federation in the central and western areas and Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) in the north and east. There has been no census since the 1992–95 war, as a result of which the ethnic and religious makeup of contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina can only be estimated.
The religious makeup of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a product of its history. Until the Ottoman conquest of the fifteenth century, the country was formally considered to be Roman Catholic, with Orthodoxy found only in Herzegovina in the south. Neither Western nor Eastern Christianity managed to penetrate Bosnia and Herzegovina deeply, however, and from the end of the twelfth century sources indicate the existence of a specifically Bosnian church.
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