Sarajevo

Sarajevo Capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, on the River Miljacka. It fell to the Turks in 1429, and became a flourishing commercial centre in the Ottoman Empire. Passing to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878, the city was a centre of Serb and Bosnian resistance to Austrian rule. On June 28, 1914, a Serbian nationalist assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in the city, an act that helped to precipitate World War I. In 1991, Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia, and a bloody civil war ensued among Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian forces. Sarajevo became the focal point of the war between Bosnian-Serb troops and Bosnian government forces. The city lay under prolonged siege, often without water, electricity, or basic medical supplies. After the 1995 peace agreement (the Dayton Accord), it in effect became a Bosnian city, with the 1991 population figure of 526,000 drastically reduced as many Serbs fled. Pop. (2002 est.) 434,000.