Sarajevo, Jerusalem of the Balkans
Wednesday, 6 July 2011 - 03:19 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union General , Union for the Mediterranean
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Old Town with Sebilj Fountain © Muu-karhu
🔊 Listen to this Post
Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 291,000 people in the four municipalities that make up the city proper, and a metro-area population of 515,000 people in the Sarajevo Canton. It is also the capital of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity, as well as the center of the Sarajevo Canton. Sarajevo is located in the Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River. The city is famous for its traditional religious diversity, with adherents of Islam, Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Judaism coexisting there for centuries. Due to this long and rich history of religious diversity, Sarajevo has often been called the “Jerusalem of Europe” or “Jerusalem of the Balkans”.
Although settlement in the area stretches back to prehistoric times, the modern city arose as an Ottoman stronghold in the 15th century. Sarajevo has attracted international attention several times throughout its history. In 1885 Sarajevo was the first city in Europe and the second city in the world to have a full-time electric tram network running through the city, the first being San Francisco, California. In 1914 it was the site of the assassination that sparked World War I. Seventy years later, it hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics. For nearly four years, from 1992–1996, the city suffered under the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War for independence.
Avaz Twist Tower, headquarters of the newspaper Dnevni avaz © Bosniak
Today the city is recovering and adjusting to a post-war reality, as a major center of culture and economic development in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The travel guide series, Lonely Planet, has named Sarajevo as the 43rd best city in the world, and in December 2009 listed Sarajevo as one of the top ten cities to visit in 2010.
Read more on
City of Sarajevo ,
Sarajevo Tourism ,
Wikitravel Sarajevo and
Wikipedia Sarajevo . Learn more about the
use of photos . To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organisations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (
Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State -
Weather report by weather.com -
Global Passport Power Rank -
Travel Risk Map -
Democracy Index -
GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank -
Global Competitiveness Report -
Corruption Perceptions Index -
Press Freedom Index -
World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index -
UN Human Development Index -
Global Peace Index -
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at
comment@wingsch.net . Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
VIDEO
Recommended posts:
[caption id="attachment_171947" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Burghof Kyffhäuser/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Kyffhäuser Monument (German: Kyffhäuserdenkmal), also known as Barbarossa Monument (Barbarossadenkmal), is an Emperor William monument within the Kyffhäuser mountain range in Thuringia. It was erected in 1890–96 at the site of medieval Kyffhausen Castle near Bad Frankenhausen. The Kyffhäuser Monument is the third-largest monument in Germany, after the Monument to the Battle of the Nations (Völ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_233336" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Sally V/cc-by-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie is an opera house in central Brussels, Belgium. The National Opera of Belgium, a federal institution, takes the name of this theatre in which it is housed—La Monnaie in French or De Munt in Dutch—referring both to the building as well as the opera company. As Belgium's leading opera house, it is one of the few cultural institutions to receive financial support from the Federal Govern...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_160710" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Houses on the Jeetze © Schiwago[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Salzwedel, officially known as Hansestadt Salzwedel, is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Altmarkkreis Salzwedel, and has a population of approximately 21,500. Salzwedel is located on the German Timber-Frame Road. Salzwedel is situated at the Jeetze River in the northwestern part of the Altmark. It is located between Hamburg and Magdeburg. The delicacies of the town are ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_218615" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Mass Dance © flickr.com - Mario Micklisch/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Hamhŭng is North Korea's second largest city, and the capital of South Hamgyŏng Province. With an estimated population of 768,551, Hamhung is the second largest city by population in the whole country of North Korea. Located in the southern part of the South Hamgyong province, Hamhung is the main and most popular metropolitan area in the whole province, and serves for almost all touris...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_233393" align="aligncenter" width="590"] USNS Lewis and Clark at Souda Bay, Crete © U.S. Navy photo - Paul Farley[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]USNS Lewis and Clark (T-AKE-1) is an American dry cargo ship, the lead ship of her namesake class. It was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The contract to build her was awarded to National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) of San Diego, California, on 18 October 2001 and her keel was lai...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_25380" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Union for the Mediterranean © NordNordWest/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) is a multilateral partnership of 43 countries from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: the 28 member states of the European Union and 15 Mediterranean partner countries from North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Europe. It was created in July 2008 as a relaunched Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (the Barcelona Process), when a plan to create an a...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_237303" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Historic centre of Córdoba © Jose María Ligero Loarte/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The historic centre of Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain is one of the largest of its kind in Europe. In 1984, UNESCO registered the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba as a World Heritage Site. A decade later, it expanded the inscription to include much of the old town. The historic centre has a wealth of monuments preserving large traces of Roman, Arabic, Islam, and Christian time...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_25504" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Pechristener/cc-by-sa-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is a 26.7 km (16.6 mi) long roadway bridge in eastern China's Shandong province, which is part of the 41.58 km (25.84 mi) Jiaozhou Bay Connection Project. As of December 2012, Guinness World Records lists the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge as the world's "longest bridge over water (aggregate length)" at 41.58 km (25.84 mi).
The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge transects Jiaozhou Bay reducing the road distanc...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_27005" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Dennis Jarvis/cc-by-sa-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") is a former Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica (church), later an imperial mosque, and now a museum (Ayasofya Müzesi) in Istanbul. From the date of its construction in 537 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. Th...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_220955" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Piazza del Campidoglio, on the top of Capitoline Hill, with the Palazzo Senatorio © Alvesgaspar/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill (Italian: Campidoglio), between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. The hill was earlier known as Mons Saturnius, dedicated to the god Saturn. The word Capitolium first meant the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus later built here, and afterwards it was used for the ...
[ read more ]
