Tuzla

Tuzla, city in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, located on a branch of the Spreča River, at the western foot of the Majevica mountain range. A road and rail hub, Tuzla’s industrial importance grew as it became the center of a lignite, oil, and gas region.

The Tuzla area’s extensive salt deposits and saltwater springs attracted human settlement as early as the Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age, around 8,000 years ago. The ancient Greeks were familiar with the area and its salt resources. Byzantine troops garrisoned the area in the 10th century. The area’s salt deposits gave rise to the early city’s name of Soli (Latin for “salts”). The Ottoman Turks first occupied the Tuzla area in 1460 and renamed the city from the word tuz (Turkish for “salt”). The Ottomans built up Tuzla. They contributed significantly to the city’s architecture, building mosques with soaring minarets and constructing city walls during their 300-year reign over the city. Tuzla, along with the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, came under the rule of Austria-Hungary in 1878, and 40 years later the region and the city were incorporated into what was then Yugoslavia.

For most of the twentieth century, Tuzla’s economy was based on local agriculture and lignite mining. The rugged terrain and nearly roadless countryside made the city’s rail connections an important transit point for farmers. With several hydroelectric plants as well as significant lignite and oil deposits nearby, Tuzla became a critical energy supplier for Yugoslavia after World War II (1939-1945).

Tuzla became a stronghold of the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government during the 1992 to 1995 civil war between the country’s Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Croats, and Serbs. Tuzla also became a major refugee center, swelling to more than seven times its prewar population. In December 1995 Tuzla was established as a headquarters for approximately 20,000 United States soldiers sent to Bosnia as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) peacekeeping force; the force was deployed to enforce the Dayton peace agreement and ensure peace. Under the Dayton agreement, Tuzla is part of the territory administered by the Bosniak-Croat federation.

The architecture of Tuzla is a blend of Islamic and Western styles. Many buildings dating to Ottoman rule were destroyed by a fire that ravaged parts of the city in 1871. Subsequent structural damage to many buildings in the old city has been caused by subsidence from salt-mine shafts that honeycomb the earth beneath the city. This settling has caused buildings to buckle and streets to sink as much as several meters in some places. Population 133,861 (2003 estimate).