Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: How large is Herzegovina?
Herzegovina (/ˌhɛərtsɪˈɡoʊvɪnə/ HAIRT-si-GOH-vi-nə or /ˌhɜːrtsəɡoʊˈviːnə/;[1] Serbo-Croatian: Hercegovina, Херцеговина, [xɛ̌rtsɛɡov̞ina]) is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian geographical region, it is sometimes asserted that the borders of the region are Dalmatia to the southwest, Montenegro to the east, Mount Maglić to the northeast, and Mount Ivan to the north. Measurements of the area range from 11,419km2 (4,409sqmi),[2] or around 22% of the total area of the present-day country,[3] to 12,276km2 (4,740sqmi), around 24% of the country.[4]
The Vance-Owen plan was presented in January 1993. It was planned to create 10 cantons on the territory of the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This plan increased conflict between Croats and Bosniaks. The Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) launched four offensives and conquered a large area which was under control of HVO; almost the whole Central Bosnia (except Novi Travnik, Vitez, Busovača, Kiseljak, Kreševo and Žepče and the wider areas around those towns and Usora, part of Municipality of Travnik, Zavidovići and part of Municipality of Vareš) and part of Herzegovina, Konjic, Jablanica and eastern and northern parts of Mostar.
Stolac, for example, is perhaps the oldest city in Herzegovina. There have been settlements dating from the Paleolithic period (Badanj Cave). An Illyrian tribe lived in the city of Daorson. There were several Roman settlements alongside the Bregava River and medieval inhabitants left large and beautiful stone grave monuments called stećak in Radimlja. Trebinje, on the Trebišnjica River, is the southernmost city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the border with Montenegro.
On 9 January 1992, the Bosnian Serb Assembly proclaimed the Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Република српског народа Босне и Херцеговине/Republika srpskog naroda Bosne i Hercegovine). On 28 February 1992, the constitution of the Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was adopted. It declared that the state's territory included Serb autonomous regions, municipalities, and other Serbian ethnic entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as "all regions in which the Serbian people represent a minority due to the Second World War genocide" (although how this was established was never specified), and that it was to be a part of the federal Yugoslav state. On 29 February and 1 March 1992 a referendum on the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Yugoslavia was held. Many Serbs boycotted the referendum and pro-independence Bosniaks (Muslims) and Croats turned out.
Natural lakes in Bosnia and Herzegovina take 67.5 km², which is a little more than 0.12% of the total surface area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Buško Blato is the largest lake, its size being 56.7 km². Blidinje lake is the largest natural mountain lake in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with surface area varying between 2.5 and 6 km², and Buško Blato lake with its size of 56.7 km² is the biggest artificial accumulation in Bosnia and Herzegovina; however it is forgotten that this lake was made from accumulation of water from the Buško Blato marshland, earlier natural slough and morass system. The total size of all lakes is 1/10 as large as the world average. Because of this, natural lakes in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not economically important.
The federalist government of Bosnia and Herzegovina makes fighting organised-crime groups extremely difficult. Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two largely independent entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska – both of which have their own capital, parliament, president and police force. Due to the poor cooperation between law-enforcement agencies in the two regions, criminals can often evade prosecution simply by moving from one to the other. Mafia groups from neighbouring countries (particularly Serbia and Croatia) often base their operations in Sarajevo, due to its proximity to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During the Bosnian War, large parts of western and central Herzegovina came under control of the Croat republic of Herzeg-Bosnia (which later joined the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) while eastern Herzegovina became a part of Republika Srpska.
The locals of Herzegovina are known by the demonym Herzegovinians (Serbo-Croatian: Hercegovci; sing. Hercegovac). While the population of Herzegovina throughout history has been ethnically mixed, the Bosnian War in the 1990s resulted in mass ethnic cleansing and large-scale displacement of people. The last pre-war census in 1991 recorded a population of 437,095 inhabitants.
According to a report prepared by the Association of journalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the country’s Press Council, the vast majority of Bosnians (around 93%) believe that there are several limitations to the right of access to public information in practice. At the same, public opinion in Bosnia and Herzegovina is largely not fully aware of their rights with regard to access to public information.
Prior to the Second World War, the Yugoslav society was overwhelmingly rural, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but even so the position of women was strikingly difficult in the interwar Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Yugoslav anthropologist Vera Stein Ehrlich found that domestic violence was a common occurrence in Orthodox villages, as was bride kidnapping and rape. Bosnia and Herzegovina also stood out in Yugoslavia due to the large proportion of Muslim population. The traditional attire of Bosnian Muslim women prevented them from seeking employment in many shops and factories. A vast majority was illiterate and many health problems were specific to them.
The government of Bosnia and Herzegovina must agree as to how funds available through the EU's Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance will be divided between the national government, the Federation, and Republika Srpska.
Large amounts of historical documents were destroyed when sections of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, housed in the presidential building, were set on fire. Among the lost archival material were documents and gifts from the Ottoman period, original documents from the 1878-1918 Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as documentations of the interwar period, the 1941-1945 rule of the Independent State of Croatia, papers from the following years, and about 15000 files from the 1996-2003 Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the general warfare of the anti-Hitler coalition, partisan movement in the Yugoslav territory, primarily Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose members, after the capitulation of Italy, disarmed a large number of Italian divisions and liberated large parts of Istria, Dalmatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, played a significant role during 1943.
The Croat-Bosniak War was at its peak during 1993. In March 1994, the Bosniak and Croat leadership signed the Washington agreement, according to which, the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH)-controlled and HVO-controlled areas were united into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the Washington agreement was signed, the Croatian Army, HVO and ARBiH liberated southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina in seven military operations. In December 1995, the Bosnian War ended with the signing of the Dayton agreement. However, the same agreement caused problem in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was largely ineffective. According to the information published by the Research and Documentation Centre in Sarajevo, 7,762 Croats were killed or missing. From the territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 230,000 Croats were expelled, while from territory of Republika Srpska, 152,856 Croats were expelled.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country in Southeastern Europe located on the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city. Bosnia faces the dual-problem of rebuilding a war-torn country and introducing transitional liberal market reforms to its formerly mixed economy. One legacy of the previous era is a strong industry; under former republic president Džemal Bijedić and SFRY President Josip Broz Tito, metal industries were promoted in the republic, resulting in the development of a large share of Yugoslavia's plants; S.R. Bosnia and Herzegovina had a very strong industrial export oriented economy in the 1970s and 1980s, with large scale exports worth millions of US$.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a liberal democracy. It has several levels of political structuring, according to the Dayton accord. The most important of these levels is the division of the country into two entities: Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina covers 51% of Bosnia and Herzegovina's total area, while Republika Srpska covers 49%. The entities, based largely on the territories held by the two warring sides at the time, were formally established by the Dayton peace agreement in 1995 because of the tremendous changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina's ethnic structure. Since 1996, the power of the entities relative to the State government has decreased significantly. Nonetheless, entities still have numerous powers to themselves.
The various advantages and privileges that were reserved for Muslims and the large number of conversions they encouraged among the native population led to the emergence over time of a largely local Muslim ruling class that dominated political and economic power in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Conversion to Islam was also used as a way to escape the devşirme tribute.
The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: "Ustav Bosne i Hercegovine" / Устав Босне и Херцеговине) is the highest legal document of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The current Constitution is the Annex 4 of The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, signed on 14 December 1995. The Constitution saw the end of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, however it has seen a large amount of criticism. Under the supervision of international community, an "arrangement of amendments" (later called "April arrangement of amendments") to the Constitution, agreed upon by leading political parties, was proposed for adoption in the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 2006, but it failed to get the approval of two-thirds of members in the House of Representatives.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has been a single entity occupying roughly the same territory since the rise of the medieval Kingdom of Bosnia and the subsequent Ottoman conquest of Bosnia between the 1380s and 1590s. The borders of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina were largely set as the borders of the Ottoman-era Eyalet of Bosnia, fixed in the south and west by the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, in the north by the 1739 Treaty of Belgrade, and in the east by the 1878 Treaty of Berlin.
Archives of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is composed of three main sectors.As of January 2017, Archive of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina holds 34 fonds. The most notable archival fond is the one related to Branko Mikulić and which is being studied by a large number of users from all around the world. The Library of the Archives contains over 2500 books and other publications which are classified as following:
The NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a series of actions undertaken by NATO whose stated aim was to establish long-term peace during and after the Bosnian War. NATO's intervention began as largely political and symbolic, but gradually expanded to include large-scale air operations and the deployment of approximately 60,000 soldiers under Operation Joint Endeavor.
Mostar is the best known urban area and the unofficial capital. It is also the only city with over 100,000 citizens. There are no other large cities in Herzegovina, though some have illustrious histories.
In August 1991, when war in Croatia had begun and was beginning in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Archbishop Puljić and Bishops Komarica and Žanić appealed to the authorities, religious communities and the international community to preserve Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state and prevent war. However, bishops differed about the internal organization of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Žanić believed that each ethnic group should have a separate administrative unit within the country, but Puljić and the leadership of the Franciscan Province of Bosnia Srebrena insisted on a single state without divisions. In 1994, the bishops demanded that the rights of all peoples must be ensured in all areas of the country. They opposed dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina into states because Catholic religious, sacred and cultural objects would remain largely outside the area granted to the Croats. They also feared the destruction of established diocesan borders of dioceses, which would have political consequences.
The architecture of Bosnia and Herzegovina is largely influenced by four major periods where political and social changes determined the creation of distinct cultural and architectural habits of the region.
Montenegro did succeed in liberating and annexing large parts of Herzegovina before the Berlin Congress of 1878, including the Nikšić area; the historical Herzegovina region annexed to Montenegro is known as East or Old Herzegovina.