PANJI HITAM: FEDERATION OF BOSNIA-HERZEG-(BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA)

Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine Федерација Босне и Херцеговине

Location of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (red) inside of Bosnia and Herzegovina (camel) on the European continent (white).

Location of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (yellow) within Bosnia and Herzegovina.¹

Capital
(and largest city) Sarajevo

Official language(s) Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian

Ethnic groups (2002) Bosniaks: 70%
Croats: 28%
Serbs: 1%

Government

Parliamentary system

- President Živko Budimir

- Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić

Entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina

- Formed 18 March 1994

- Recognized in Bosnia and Herzegovina constitution 14 December 1995

Area

- Total 26,110.5 km²
10,085 sq mi

- Water (%) N/A

Population

- 2009 estimate 2,327,318^[1]

- 1996 census 2,444,665²

- Density 117/km²
303.86/sq mi

Currency Convertible Mark (BAM)

Time zone CET (UTC+1)

- Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)

Drives on the right

The Flag of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Coat of arms of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and were due to be replaced by September. On 31 March 2007, the Constitutional Court placed its decision into the "Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina" officially removing them.^[2] The federation has not yet adopted a new anthem or coat of arms, but uses the symbols of the central state as a provisional solution.^[3]

¹ Although the Brčko District is formally held in condominium by both entities simultaneously (the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska), it is a de facto third entity, as it has all the same powers as the other two entities and is under the direct sovereignty of BiH.^[4]^[5]

² Refugees abroad included

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina listen (help·info) (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine Serbian Cyrillic: Федерација Босне и Херцеговине) is one of the two political entities that compose the sovereign country of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the other entity is the Republika Srpska). The two entities are delineated by the Inter-Entity Boundary Line. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is primarily inhabited by Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, which is why it is informally referred to as the Bosniak-Croat Federation (with the Bosnian Serbs as the third constituency of the entity).

The Federation was created by the Washington accords signed on 18 March 1994, which established a constituent assembly that continued its work until October 1996. The Federation now has its own capital, government, president, parliament, customs and police departments, postal system (in fact, two of them), and airline (BH Airlines). It used to have its own army, the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, though along with the Army of the Republika Srpska it was fully integrated into Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, controlled by the Ministry of Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on 6 June 2006.

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[edit] History

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was formed by the Washington Agreement of March 1994. Under the agreement, the combined territory held by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Defence Council forces was divided into ten autonomous cantons. The cantonal system was selected to prevent dominance by one ethnic group over another.

In 1995, Bosnian government forces and Bosnian Croat forces of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina defeated forces of the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, and this territory was added to the federation. By the Dayton Agreement of 1995, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was defined as one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina and included 51% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina (another entity, Republika Srpska included 49%).

On 8 March 2000, the Brčko District was formed as an autonomous entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina and it was created from part of the territory of both Bosnian entities. Brčko District is now a shared territory that belongs to both entities.

[edit] Geography

[edit] Boundary

The Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IEBL) that distinguishes Bosnia and Herzegovina's two entities essentially runs along the military front lines as they existed at the end of the Bosnian War, with adjustments (most importantly in the western part of the country and around Sarajevo), as defined by the Dayton Agreement. The total length of the IEBL is approximately 1,080 km. The IEBL is an administrative demarcation and not controlled by the military or police and there is free movement across it.

[edit] Cantons

Main article: Cantons of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into ten cantons (Bosnian: kantoni Croatian: županije):

No.	Canton	Center	No.	Canton	Center
I.	Una-Sana	Bihać	VI.	Central Bosnia	Travnik
II.	Posavina	Orašje	VII.	Herzegovina-Neretva	Mostar
III.	Tuzla	Tuzla	VIII.	West Herzegovina	Široki Brijeg
IV.	Zenica-Doboj	Zenica	IX.	Sarajevo	Sarajevo
V.	Bosnian Podrinje	Goražde	X.	Canton 10	Livno

Five of the cantons (Una-Sana, Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj, Bosnian Podrinje and Sarajevo) are Bosniak majority cantons, three (Posavina, West Herzegovina and Canton 10) are Croat majority cantons, and two (Central Bosnia and Herzegovina-Neretva) are 'ethnically mixed', meaning there are special legislative procedures for protection of the constituent ethnic groups.

A significant portion of Brčko District was also part of the Federation; however, when the district was created, it became shared territory of both entities, but it was not placed under control of either of the two, and is hence under direct jurisdiction of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Currently the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has 79 municipalities.

[edit] Cities

List of the largest municipalities in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina:^{[note 1]}^[6]

No.	Name	Population
1.	Sarajevo	304,614
2.	Tuzla	174,558
3.	Zenica	145,000
4.	Mostar	128,488
5.	Bihać	105,000
6.	Travnik	75,000
7.	Cazin	66,881
8.	Sanski Most	60,307
9.	Bosanska Krupa	58,320
10.	Zavidovići	57,164
11.	Lukavac	56,830
12.	Gradačac	56,378
13.	Kakanj	55,857
14.	Gračanica	55,000
15.	Živinice	54,768
16.	Tešanj	52,249
17.	Srebrenik	47,938
18.	Bugojno	46,630
19.	Velika Kladuša	44,350
20.	Konjic	43,878
21.	Maglaj	43,294
22.	Goražde	36,496
23.	Livno	32,454
24.	Odžak	30,651

[edit] Demographics

Ethnic composition in 1991

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina comprises 51% of the land area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is home to 62.1% of the country's total population.^[7] All data dealing with population, including ethnic distributions, are subject to considerable error because of the lack of official census figures.

Year	Muslims^[8]	%	Croats	%	Serbs	%	Yugoslavs	%	Others	%	Total
1991	1,423,593	52.3%	594,362	21.9%	478,122	17.6%	161,938	5.9%	62,059	2.3%	2,720,074

[edit] Government and politics

The government and politics of the Federation are dominated by two large parties, the Bosniak Party for Democratic Action (Stranka demokratske akcije, SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, HDZ).^[9]

In September 2010, the International Crisis Group warned that "disputes among and between Bosniak and Croat leaders and a dysfunctional administrative system have paralysed decision-making, put the entity on the verge of bankruptcy and triggered social unrest".^[9]