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Bosnia and Herzegovina counted · Part 01 of 09

Where people live

Bosnia and Herzegovina is 142 units on this series’ map: 141 municipalities and cities, and Brčko District. Some hold a city of a hundred thousand, some a few hundred people in a valley.

The answer

Half of all residents live in 24 of the 142 units; the other half are spread over the remaining 118. The largest, Banja Luka, has 185,042 residents; the smallest, Istočni Drvar, has 79. 43% of residents live in places the census calls urban, and the 38 settlements of 10,000 or more hold 33% of the country.
24 of 142
units that hold half of all residents
43%
of residents in urban settlements
68
residents per km², the whole country

Municipality by municipality

Where the residents are

Density puts Sarajevo’s four city municipalities far ahead, Novo Sarajevo at nearly 7,000 residents per km², then the towns around them and the band of small, crowded municipalities between Doboj, Tuzla and Gradačac. The lightest shades are the western highlands, Glamoč, Bosansko Grahovo, Kupres, and the uplands of eastern Herzegovina, Kalinovik, Berkovići, Ljubinje, all under 11 residents per km². Areas are measured on the map’s outlines, so they are close, not surveyed.

Residents per km², 2013. Point at a municipality.

<2525–5050–100100–250250+

Source: Agency for Statistics of BiH, census 2013 final results · areas from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC BY 4.0)

Residents, 2013

The largest and the smallest

The ten largest units hold 30% of the country. The four smallest, Istočni Drvar, Istočni Mostar, Kupres in the RS and Petrovac, are fragments the inter-entity line cut off larger pre-war municipalities; none had 400 residents. Brčko District counts as one unit here, as it does in the census.

Ten largest

  1. 1Banja Luka185,042150 per km²
  2. 2Novi Grad Sarajevo118,5532,821 per km²
  3. 3Tuzla110,979383 per km²
  4. 4Zenica110,663193 per km²
  5. 5Bijeljina107,715140 per km²
  6. 6Mostar105,797101 per km²
  7. 7Prijedor89,397109 per km²
  8. 8Brčko District83,516169 per km²
  9. 9Doboj (with Stanari)71,441100 per km²
  10. 10Ilidža66,730455 per km²

Ten smallest

  1. 1Istočni Drvar791 per km²
  2. 2Istočni Mostar2574 per km²
  3. 3Kupres (RS)3005 per km²
  4. 4Petrovac3612 per km²
  5. 5Pale (FBiH)90411 per km²
  6. 6Istočni Stari Grad1,13114 per km²
  7. 7Jezero1,14415 per km²
  8. 8Trnovo (FBiH)1,5025 per km²
  9. 9Krupa na Uni1,59715 per km²
  10. 10Dobretići1,62923 per km²

Source: Agency for Statistics of BiH, census 2013 final results

6,141 settlements

Many villages, few people in most of them

Below the municipality the census counts settlements, naseljena mjesta: a town, a village, a hamlet on a hillside. Of 6,141, 5,599 had anyone living in them. 2,276 had fewer than a hundred residents and together held 2.1% of the country. Part 06 goes into the empty and ageing ones.

ResidentsSettlementsPeople living in them
Empty5420 0%
1–491,66231,744 1%
50–9961444,166 1%
100–4991,943501,142 14%
500–1,9991,1331,045,817 30%
2,000–9,999209742,786 21%
10,000+381,165,504 33%

A city that spans several municipalities is split between them in the settlement tables, so Sarajevo appears once for each of its city municipalities.

Largest settlements

  1. 1Banja Luka138,963
  2. 2Sarajevo, in Novi Grad Sarajevo117,822
  3. 3Tuzla74,457
  4. 4Zenica70,553
  5. 5Sarajevo, in Novo Sarajevo63,952
  6. 6Sarajevo, in Ilidža63,528
  7. 7Mostar60,195
  8. 8Sarajevo, in Centar Sarajevo53,081
  9. 9Bijeljina42,278
  10. 10Brčko39,893

Source: Agency for Statistics of BiH, census 2013 final results · settlement tables, Book 1, table 3.1.1