Bosnia and Herzegovina (in Bosnian language and Croatian language, Bosnia and Herzegovina; in Serbian language, Босна и Херцеговина), is a sovereign European state, with capital in Sarajevo, located on the Balkan Peninsula, in the southeast of the continent, and whose borders are delimited with Croatia, to the north, west and south; with Serbia to the east; with Montenegro to the east and south, and with the Adriatic Sea to which it appears to the south at a small point that does not reach 10 km. In 1992 it obtained its independence as the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as one of the six constituent federal units of the former Yugoslavia that emerged at the end of the First World War., and was constituted as a federal republic under the terms of the Dayton agreements, which provided for its administration under the supervision of a high representative elected by the Council of the European Union. Its structure is decentralized and divided into two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.
In its form of government, according to Physicscat, Bosnia Herzegovina has a bicameral Parliament. The current President of the Republic is elected on a rotating basis among representatives of each of the minorities, Muslim, Serbian and Croatian.
The entities are territorially based on the positions on the ground held by the forces that were sustaining the armed conflict at the time the 1995 Dayton Agreement was formally signed, in light of the devastating changes in the ethnic structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina product of war.
Since 1996 the power of the entities compared to that of the federal government of Bosnia and Herzegovina has decreased significantly, but these entities also continue to reserve for themselves a large amount of powers and attributions. The Brčko federal district, which is located in the north of the country, was created in 2000 outside the territory of these entities, so it officially belongs to the two entities, but neither of them governs it and the governmental power, it is local and decentralized. The Brčko district is distinguished by maintaining a multi-ethnic population and a standard of living above the national average.
The third level of the political-administrative subdivision of Bosnia and Herzegovina, manifests itself through the cantons, but these are only found in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are ten cantons in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, each of which has its own cantonal government, which are under the Constitution of the Federation. Some of the cantons have different ethnic components and therefore have special laws in order to balance the forces between the ethnic groups.
The fourth level in the political division of Bosnia and Herzegovina are the municipalities. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into 74 municipalities and the Republic of Serbia / Sprska in 63. Municipalities, have local governments and commonly spread around the most important city within their territories, so many municipalities have a long history and tradition that is expressed in these divisions, but there are also others that are the exclusive product of the subdivision after the war of the 1990s. Each canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina comprises several municipalities.
In addition to the entity-states, the cantons and the municipalities, Bosnia and Herzegovina also has four “official cities”; they are: Banja Luka, Mostar, Sarajevo and East Sarajevo (Istočno Sarajevo). The territory of the cities of Banja Luka and Mostar corresponds to the municipalities of the same name, while Sarajevo and East Sarajevo contain several municipalities. The cities have their own government in which the power of the cities is at a level between the municipalities and the cantons (or of the entity in the case of the Republic Serbia / Sprska)
Armed forces
The Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Oružane snage BiH, OSBiH) represent the official military force of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the Bosnian war, the armies that formed the three contending ethnic groups (ARBiH, VRS and HVO) were forced to disarm to form a common armed forces, which in 2005 formed the current army. That year, an OSBiH unit was deployed in support of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
