Sarajevo, capital and cultural centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies in the narrow valley of the Miljacka River at the foot of Mount Trebević. The city retains a strong Muslim character, having many mosques, wooden houses with ornate interiors, and the ancient Turkish marketplace (the Baščaršija); much of the population is Muslim. The city’s principal mosques are the Gazi Husreff-Bey’s Mosque, or Begova Džamija (1530), and the Mosque of Ali Pasha (1560–61). Husreff-Bey also built the medrese (madrasah), a Muslim school of theology; the Imaret, a free kitchen for the poor; and the hamam, public baths. A late 16th-century clock tower is adjacent to the Begova Džamija. Museums include the Mlada Bosna (“Young Bosnia”), an annex of the town museum; the Museum of the Revolution, chronicling the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1878; and a Jewish museum. Sarajevo has a university (1949) that includes faculties in mining and technology, an academy of sciences, an art college, and several hospitals. A number of streets named for trades survive from an original 37, and the Kazandžviluk (coppersmith’s bazaar) is preserved in its original form.
Near Sarajevo are the remains of a Neolithic settlement of the Butmir culture. The Romans established a rest centre at nearby Ilidža, where the Bosna River has its source; there is still a sulfurous spa. The Goths, followed by the Slavs, began settling in the area about the 7th century. In 1415 Sarajevo is mentioned as Vrhbosna, and, after the Turks invaded in the late 15th century, the town developed as a trading centre and stronghold of Muslim culture. Dubrovnik merchants built the Latin quarter (Latinluk), and migrating Sephardic Jews founded their quarter, Čifuthani. The 17th and 18th centuries were less fortunate—Prince Eugene of Savoy burned the town in 1697, while fires and plagues decimated the population.
The declining Ottoman Empire made Sarajevo the administrative seat of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1850. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire ousted the Turks in 1878, Sarajevo remained the administrative seat and was largely modernized in the following decades. During this period it also became the centre of the Bosnian Serbs’ resistance movement, the Mlada Bosna, whose resentment of Austrian rule culminated on June 28, 1914, when a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated the Austrian heir apparent, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife. The Austro-Hungarian government used this incident as a pretext for mobilizing against Serbia, thus precipitating World War I. In November 1918 the Diet of Sarajevo proclaimed union within Yugoslavia. During the German occupation of World War II, Sarajevo resistance fighters in the republic fought several crucial battles against the Germans. After World War II, Sarajevo rapidly repaired the considerable war damage. After Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992, Sarajevo became a focal point of fierce warfare in the region in the mid-90s, and the city suffered considerable damage. Recovery was slow thereafter.
Sarajevo is the centre of a road network and has a rail connection to the Adriatic. Old craft trades, particularly metalware and carpet making, continue. Sarajevo was the site for the 1984 Winter Olympic Games. The city’s pre-civil war industry included a sugar-beet refinery, brewery, furniture factory, tobacco factory, hosiery works, communications plants, an agribusiness combine, and an automobile industry. Pop. (2005 est.) 380,000.