| Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country on the Balkan peninsula of southern Europe with an area of 51,129 km² (19,741 square miles), and an estimated population of around four million people. It is known in the country's official languages as Bosna i Hercegovina or Босна и Херцеговина (in the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets respectively), although the name is commonly abbreviated to Bosnia, BiH or БиХ.
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,[1][2] centered 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.
Formerly one of the six federal units constituting the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina gained its independence during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. As a result of the Dayton Accords it is currently administered in a supervisory role by a High Representative selected by the UN Security Council. More recently the country has acquired many central institutions (such as ministry of defense, state court etc.) as it takes the jurisdiction back from its entities.
Bosnia itself is the chief geographic region of the modern state, with a moderate continental climate, consisting of hot summers and cold snowy winters. Herzegovina is the southern tip of the country, known for its starkly Mediterranean climate and relief. It was included first as the official name of the then Ottoman province official name in the mid-nineteenth century.
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