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Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo Canton, containing the city of Sarajevo and nearby municipalities, is home to 413,593 inhabitants. Located within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of the Balkans, a region of Southeastern Europe.
Sarajevo is the political, financial, social, and cultural centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a prominent centre of culture in the Balkans. It exerts region-wide influence in entertainment, media, fashion, and the arts. Due to its long history of religious and cultural diversity, Sarajevo is sometimes called the "Jerusalem of Europe" or "Jerusalem of the Balkans". It is one of a few major European cities to have a mosque, Catholic church, Eastern Orthodox church, and synagogue within the same neighborhood. It is also home to the former Yugoslavia's first institution of tertiary education in the form of an Islamic polytechnic, today part of the University of Sarajevo.
Although there is evidence of human settlement in the area since prehistoric times, the modern city arose in the 15th century as an Ottoman stronghold when the Ottoman Empire extended into Europe. Sarajevo has gained international renown several times throughout its history. In 1914, Sarajevo was the site of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a local Young Bosnia activist Gavrilo Princip, a murder that sparked World War I. This led to the end of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and the creation of the multicultural Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the Balkans. Later, after World War II, the area was designated the capital of the communist Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, leading to rapid population growth and business expansion, with investment in infrastructure and economic development.
In 1984, Sarajevo hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, which marked a prosperous era for the city. However, after the start of the Yugoslav Wars, the city endured the longest siege of a capital city in modern history, lasting 1,425 days from April 1992 to February 1996, during the Bosnian War. With continued post-war reconstruction in its aftermath, Sarajevo is the fastest-growing city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2006, the travel guide series Lonely Planet ranked Sarajevo as the 43rd best city in the world. In December 2009, it recommended Sarajevo as one of the top ten cities to visit in 2010.
In 2011, Sarajevo was nominated as the 2014 European Capital of Culture. It was also selected with Istočno Sarajevo to host the 2019 European Youth Olympic Winter Festival. In addition, in October 2019, Sarajevo was designated as a UNESCO Creative City for having placed culture at the center of its development strategies, and is also ranked as a UNESCO City of Film. In October 2024, National Geographic declared Sarajevo as the best world destination for 2025 according to its readers.
The name Sarajevo derives from the Turkish noun saray, meaning "palace" or "mansion" (from Persian sarāy, سرای, of the same meaning). Scholars disagree on the origin of the evo attached to the end. In Slavic languages, the addition of "-evo" may indicate a possessive noun, thereby making the name of Sarajevo 'city of the palace'.
One theory is that the name may have been derived from the Ottoman Turkish term saray ovası, first recorded in 1455, meaning "the plains around the palace" or simply "palace plains".
However, in his Dictionary of Turkish Loanwords, Abdulah Škaljić maintains that the evo ending is more likely to have come from the widespread Slavic suffix evo used to indicate place names, than from the Turkish ending ova. The first mention of the name Sarajevo was in a 1507 letter written by Firuz Bey. The official name during the 400 years of Ottoman rule was Saraybosna ("Palace of Bosnia"), which remains the city's name in Modern Turkish.
Sarajevo has had many nicknames. The earliest is Šeher, the term Isa-Beg Ishaković used to describe the town he was going to construct—which is Turkish for "city" (şehir), in turn coming from the Persian shahr (شهر, meaning "city"). As Sarajevo developed, numerous nicknames came from comparisons to other cities in the Islamic world, i.e. "Damascus of the North".
Sarajevo is near the geometric center of the triangular-shaped Bosnia and Herzegovina and within the historical region of Bosnia. It is situated 518 m (1,699 ft) above sea level and lies in the Sarajevo valley, in the middle of the Dinaric Alps.
The valley was once an expansive, fertile, and green space, but considerable urban expansion and development took place following World War II. Forested hills and five major mountains surround the city. The highest of the surrounding peaks is Treskavica at 2,088 m (6,850 ft), followed by Bjelašnica mountain at 2,067 m (6,781 ft), Jahorina at 1,913 m (6,276 ft), Trebević at 1,627 m (5,338 ft), and Igman the shortest at 1,502 m (4,928 ft). The last four are also known as the Olympic Mountains of Sarajevo.
When the city hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, venues were constructed at these mountains for many winter sports events. The city is developed within hilly terrain; some steeply inclined streets and residences perch on the hillsides.
The Miljacka river is one of the city's chief geographic features. It flows through the city from east through the center of Sarajevo to the west part of the city, where it eventually meets up with the Bosna river. Miljacka River is also known as "The Sarajevo River". Its source (Vrelo Miljacke) is 2 km (1.2 mi) south of the town of Pale at the foothills of Mount Jahorina, several kilometers to the east of Sarajevo center. The Bosna's source, Vrelo Bosne near Ilidža (west Sarajevo), is another notable natural landmark and a popular destination for Sarajevans and other tourists. Several smaller rivers and streams, such as Koševski Potok, also run through the city and its vicinity.
Sarajevo is close to the center of the triangular shape of Bosnia and Herzegovina in southeastern Europe. The Sarajevo city consists of four municipalities: Centar (Center), Novi Grad (New Town), Novo Sarajevo (New Sarajevo), and Stari Grad (Old Town).
The Metropolitan area was reduced in the 1990s after the war and the Dayton-imposed administrative division of the country, with several municipalities partitioned along the border of the newly recognized Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS), creating several new municipalities which together form the city of Istočno Sarajevo in the Republika Srpska: Istočna Ilidža, Istočno Novo Sarajevo, Istočni Stari Grad, Lukavica, Pale (RS-section), and Trnovo (RS-section), along with the municipality of Sokolac (which was not traditionally part of the Sarajevo area and was not partitioned).
The city has an urban area of 1,041.5 km2 (402.1 sq mi). Veliki Park (Great Park) is the largest green area in the center of Sarajevo. It is nestled between Titova, Koševo, Džidžikovac, Tina Ujevića and Trampina Streets and in the lower part there is a monument dedicated to the Children of Sarajevo.
Sarajevo has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb) bordering on a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfb). Sarajevo's climate exhibits four seasons and uniformly spread precipitation. The proximity of the Adriatic Sea moderates Sarajevo's climate somewhat, although the mountains to the south of the city greatly reduce this maritime influence. The average yearly temperature is 11.1 °C (52 °F), with January (0.6 °C (33.1 °F) on average) being the coldest month of the year and August (21.3 °C (70.3 °F) on average) the warmest.
The highest recorded temperature was 40.0 °C (104 °F) on 19 August 1946, while the lowest recorded temperature was −26.2 °C (−15.2 °F) on 25 January 1942. On 13 August 2024, Sarajevo recorded a temperature of 39.7 °C (103.5 °F), the highest since 1946. On average, Sarajevo has 32 days where the temperature exceeds 30 °C (86.0 °F) and 83 days where the temperature drops below 0 °C (32 °F) per year. The city typically experiences mildly cloudy skies, with an average yearly cloud cover of 45%.
The cloudiest month is December (75% average cloud cover), while the clearest is August (37%). Moderate precipitation occurs fairly consistently throughout the year, with an average 75 days of rainfall. Suitable climatic conditions have allowed winter sports to flourish in the region, as exemplified by the 1984 Winter Olympics that were held in Sarajevo. Average winds are 28–48 km/h (17–30 mph) and the city has 1,895 hours of sunshine.
Air pollution is a major issue in Sarajevo. According to the 2016 World Health Organization's Ambient Air Pollution Database, the annual average PM2.5 concentration in 2010 was estimated to be 30 μg/m3 based on PM10 measurement, which is 3 times higher than recommended by WHO Air Quality Guidelines for the annual average PM2.5. There are no recent direct long-term PM2.5 measurements available in Sarajevo and only estimates can be made from PM10, which is less health-relevant than PM2.5. Real-time air quality data in the form of PM10, ozone, NO2, CO and SO2 by the Federal Hydrometeorological Institute Archived 13 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
One of the earliest findings of settlement in the Sarajevo area is that of the Neolithic Butmir culture. The discoveries at Butmir were made on the grounds of the modern-day Sarajevo suburb Ilidža in 1893 by Austro-Hungarian authorities during the construction of an agricultural school. The area's richness in flint was attractive to Neolithic humans, and the settlement flourished. The settlement developed unique ceramics and pottery designs, which characterize the Butmir people as a unique culture, as described at the International Congress of Archaeologists and Anthropologists meeting in Sarajevo in 1894.
The next prominent culture in Sarajevo was the Illyrians. The ancient people, who considered most of the Western Balkans as their homeland, had several key settlements in the region, mostly around the river Miljacka and the Sarajevo valley. The Illyrians in the Sarajevo region belonged to the Daesitiates, the last Illyrian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina to resist Roman occupation. Their defeat by the Roman emperor Tiberius in 9 AD marks the start of Roman rule in the region. The Romans never built up the region of modern-day Bosnia, but the Roman colony of Aquae Sulphurae was near the top of present-day Ilidža, and was the most important settlement of the time. After the Romans, the Goths settled the area, followed by the Slavs in the 7th century.
During the Middle Ages, Sarajevo was part of the Bosnian province of Vrhbosna near the traditional center of the Kingdom of Bosnia. Though a city named Vrhbosna existed, the exact settlement in Sarajevo at this time is debated. Various documents note a place called Tornik in the region, most likely in the area of the Marijin Dvor neighborhood. By all indications, Tornik was a very small marketplace surrounded by a proportionally small village and was not considered very important by Ragusan merchants.
Other scholars say that Vrhbosna was a major town in the wider area of modern-day Sarajevo. Papal documents say that in 1238, a cathedral dedicated to Saint Paul was built in the area. Disciples of the notable saints Cyril and Methodius stopped in the region, founding a church near Vrelo Bosne. Whether or not the town was somewhere in the area of modern-day Sarajevo, the documents attest to its and the region's importance. There was also a citadel Hodidjed north-east to the Old City, dating from around 1263 until it was occupied by the Ottoman Empire in 1429.
Sarajevo was founded by the Ottoman Empire in the 1450s upon its conquest of the region, with 1461 used as the city's founding date. The first Ottoman governor of Bosnia, Isa-Beg Ishaković, transformed the cluster of villages into a city and state capital by building several key structures, including a mosque, a closed marketplace, a hamam, a caravansarai, a bridge, and of course the governor's palace ("Saray"), which gave the city its present name in conjunction with "evo". The mosque was named "Careva Džamija" (the Emperor's Mosque) in honor of Sultan Mehmed II. With the improvements, Sarajevo quickly grew into the largest city in the region. By the 15th century the settlement was established as a city, named Bosna-Saraj, around the citadel in 1461.
Following the expulsion of Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, and the invitation from the Ottoman Empire to resettle their population, Sephardic Jews arrived in Sarajevo, which over time would become a leading center of Sephardic culture and the Ladino language. Though relatively small in size, a Jewish quarter would develop over several blocks in Baščaršija.
Many local Christians converted to Islam at this time. To accommodate the new pilgrims on the road to Mecca, in 1541, Gazi Husrev-beg's quartermaster Vekil-Harrach built a pilgrim's mosque which it is still known to this day as the Hadžijska Mosque.
Under leaders such as the second governor Gazi Husrev-beg, Sarajevo grew at a rapid rate. Husrev-beg greatly shaped the physical city, as most of what is now the Old Town was built during his reign. Sarajevo became known for its large marketplace and numerous mosques, which by the middle of the 16th century numbered more than 100. At the peak of the empire, Sarajevo was the biggest and most important Ottoman city in the Balkans after Istanbul. By 1660, the population of Sarajevo was estimated to be over 80,000. By contrast, Belgrade in 1683 had 100,000, and Zagreb as late as 1851 had 14,000 people. As political conditions changed, Sarajevo became the site of warfare.
In 1697, during the Great Turkish War, a raid was led by Prince Eugene of Savoy of the Habsburg monarchy against the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Sarajevo and left it plague-infected and burned to the ground. After his men had looted thoroughly, they set the city on fire and destroyed nearly all of it in one day. Only a handful of neighborhoods, some mosques, and an Orthodox church were left standing. Numerous other fires weakened the city, which was later rebuilt but never fully recovered from the destruction. By 1807, it had only some 60,000 residents.
In the 1830s, several battles of the Bosnian uprising had taken place around the city. These had been led by Husein Gradaščević. Today, a major city street is named Zmaj od Bosne (Dragon of Bosnia) in his honor. The rebellion failed and for several more decades, the Ottoman state remained in control of Bosnia.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Sarajevo”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.