Mostar

Mostar, city in southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the Neretva River. Mostar is the main city of Herzegovina, traditionally an administrative unit within the republic. The city was seriously disrupted by a civil war between the country’s three main ethnic groups—the Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Serbs, and Croats—that lasted from 1992 to 1995. The city is home to the University of Mostar (founded in 1977).

Mostar was founded in the 1400s and flourished during the succeeding four centuries of Ottoman rule. Along with the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the city was occupied by Austria-Hungary in 1878; in 1918 Mostar was included in the newly established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia). In April 1992, shortly after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia, Bosnian Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav People’s Army, launched an offensive in eastern Bosnia. The war quickly spread to the Mostar region, where Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks fought against the Serbs. In July 1992, after the Serbs were defeated in Mostar, the Croats proclaimed their own state in the area, called the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, intending to annex it to Croatia. They established Mostar as their capital and set up a parliament there. By spring 1993 fighting had broken out between Bosniaks and Croats; the fighting was especially fierce around Mostar. In November Mostar’s most famous landmark—a single-arch bridge over the Neretva, designed by Turkish architect Mimar Hairedin in 1566—was destroyed by Bosnian Croat forces. By the end of the year, the Croats had largely asserted their control of the city.

A federation was forged between Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks in March 1994, putting an end to the hostilities between them. Mostar suffered extensive physical damage as a result of the war and its population declined. Before the war, Mostar was almost evenly divided among Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. Today there are virtually no Serbs in the city, and the Bosniak and Croat populations are divided, with Bosniaks living on the eastern bank of the Neretva, and Croats on the western bank. See Yugoslav Succession, Wars of. Population 105,448 (2003 estimate).