Bosnia: Geography and Society

Abstract

Bosnia, vast in extent and mountainous in character, has often been described in this way, with a heavy emphasis on the country’s natural wealth and its geostrategic position. Very mountainous, Bosnia stretches from the dense forest and rich high plateau pastures of north-central Bosnia to the dry and barren landscape of western Herzegovina, and is divided by rivers, most of which are non-navigable. As Braudel states in his great work, The Mediterranean, ‘The traveler crossing from the bare stones of Herzegovina to the wooded slopes of Bosnia enters a different world, as Jean Brunhes has noted.It is mainly because of this characteristic of Bosnia that the nineteenth-century Austrian geologist Ami Boué, who made three trips to the Balkan lands, called Bosnia the ‘Switzerland of Turkey.