Sarajevo

There were villages and a medieval citadel in the valley before the Ottomans, but the city itself is an Ottoman creation, with 1461 used as its founding date. Isa-beg Ishaković, the first Ottoman governor of Bosnia, turned a cluster of villages into a town by building a mosque, a covered market, a bath, a caravanserai, a bridge and the governor's palace, the saray that gave Sarajevo its name. Gazi Husrev-beg, governor in the 16th century, added the great mosque, library and madrasa that still anchor the Baščaršija. Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain settled here, and the city became a centre of Sephardic culture and the Ladino language. By 1660 its population was estimated at more than 80,000.

In 1697 Prince Eugene of Savoy raided the city and left it plague-infected and burned to the ground; by 1807 it had only about 60,000 people. After 1878 Austria-Hungary rebuilt and industrialised it, giving it a horse-drawn tram line in 1885, a brewery, the National Museum and the City Hall. On 28 June 1914 Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand beside the Latin Bridge, setting off the crisis that led to the First World War.

Under socialist Yugoslavia the city grew from about 115,000 people after the Second World War to more than 600,000, and in 1984 it hosted the Winter Olympics. Eight years later it was encircled: the siege lasted 1,425 days, from April 1992 to February 1996, the longest of a capital city in modern history. Since the war the City Hall and the cable car have been rebuilt, and tourism has grown.

Sarajevo is sometimes called the Jerusalem of Europe, one of a few European cities with a mosque, a Catholic church, an Orthodox church and a synagogue in the same neighbourhood. That mix still defines its identity. The call to prayer carries over the old town, and the National Museum keeps the Sarajevo Haggadah, the treasure of the city's Jewish community.

The city is a prominent centre of culture in the Balkans and one of the most important musical centres in the region. The Sarajevo Film Festival, founded under siege in 1995, is the largest in south-east Europe, and Jazz Fest Sarajevo and the Sarajevo Winter Festival fill the calendar into the cold months. The 1984 Olympics left their venues on the mountains, and the abandoned bobsleigh track on Trebević was used by graffiti artists after the war.

The siege is remembered in the street. Mortar scars in the pavement filled with red resin, called Sarajevo roses, mark places where at least three people were killed, and memorial galleries and museums tell the story of the war and of Srebrenica. Sarajevans have a reputation for friendliness to visitors. Football is followed closely, and FK Sarajevo play at Koševo, the country's largest stadium.

About 275,000 people lived within the city limits at the 2013 census, and about 414,000 in Sarajevo Canton, which includes Ilidža and the other suburbs; the 1991 census recorded more than 520,000 in the city's ten municipalities. Novi Grad, the most populous municipality, and Ilidža have grown since 2013. The southern suburbs across the entity line form the separate city of East Sarajevo.

The city is the political, financial and cultural centre of the country. Government offices, embassies and international bodies, the University of Sarajevo, manufacturing, media and tourism provide much of the work, and companies such as BH Telecom, Bosnalijek and the Sarajevo Brewery are based here.

People live in Ottoman-era houses on the hillsides, Austro-Hungarian apartment blocks in the centre and large socialist estates to the west, all linked by the tram along the valley floor. The tram tracks were renewed between 2021 and 2023, and in February 2026 a tram derailment near the National Museum killed a student. The day turns around coffee and the evening stroll down Ferhadija, and weekends around the mountains. Air pollution is a major local issue.

Ćevapi are the city's signature and a national dish of the country. The Bosnian version is made from two kinds of minced beef, mixed by hand and shaped through a funnel, then grilled and served five to ten at a time in somun, a soft flatbread, with chopped onion and kajmak, a creamy dairy product similar to clotted cream. The grill shops that sell them, called ćevabdžinice, cluster in the Baščaršija.

Pies are the other everyday staple. Burek is made with thin, flaky filo-style dough, and its relatives include sirnica, filled with cheese, and zeljanica, filled with spinach. Begova čorba, the bey's soup of chicken and vegetables, dates from the Ottoman period and is served to guests at weddings, celebrations and religious holidays, including Eid and Ramadan. Stuffed peppers, sarma, grah bean soup and goulash fill out the home-cooking repertoire.

Sweets come from the Ottoman kitchen: baklava, ružica, a baklava-like roll with raisins, and tufahija, a whole stewed apple stuffed with walnuts. During Ramadan bakeries sell a special somun scattered with seeds. Bosnian coffee, made from very finely ground beans prepared in a small pot and served unfiltered, is drunk throughout the day, and the Sarajevo Brewery, founded under Austro-Hungarian rule, supplies the city's beer; plum brandy, rakija, is the toast.