Talk:Bosnia and Herzegovina

This is not a political forum; please restrict all discussion here to discussion about how best to improve the Bosnia and Herzegovina article. Off topic debates, political rants, nonsense poetry, etc. will all be removed as it is added. This is a travel guide and political disputes are utterly irrelevant except insofar as they directly bear upon the experience of a traveller. See Wikivoyage:Be fair#Political disputes for further guidelines.

Formatting and language conventions For articles about Bosnia and Herzegovina, please use the 24-hour clock to show times, e.g. 09:00-12:00 and 18:00-00:00. Please show prices in this format: 100 KM (make sure it's with a capital KM) and not BAM 100, or km100. Please use British spelling (colour, travelled, centre, realise, analogue, programme, defence).

For future reference the Project:CIA World Factbook 2002 import can be found at Talk:Bosnia and Herzegovina/CIA World Factbook 2002 import. ---

English Spelling Irrelevancies

For some reason, Americans have been making irrelevant spelling changes to this page. If someone contributes "flavour" as opposed to "flavor" - it is not wrong, they're just using English/Canadian/Australian spelling as opposed to US spelling. Don't bother wasting time making irrelevant changes like that as both "flavor" and "flavour" are correct!

Regions

The B&H Tourism Assocation presents the country as five regions which (refreshingly) bear no resemblance to the political gerrymander of Srpska vs. Federation-B&H, but are instead fairly easy to draw on a map and seem travel-friendly:

• Herzegovina
• Sarajevo Region
• Central Bosnia
• Northwest Bosnia
• Northeast Bosnia

Any objections to taking the geographic route rather than the political/ethnic route? - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 16:16, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

You could, but it is not clear to me from the article whether it is safe and unproblematic to travel from one entity to the other. Maybe you could also specify that. 88.117.112.28 06:37, 18 June 2007 (EDT)

OK, so I stuck my hands way down the hornets nest, and tried to come up with something neutral. This proposal overlooks the Federation and Republic boundaries completely (on purpose, Per Todds comments above), and instead focuses on a mix of 3 indisputable historic regions (Bosanska Krajna, Herzegovina & Posavina) and lends the rest of the division from the official tourism agency [1]. I'd really like some comments - before implementing this, and will leave it up for 2 weeks. As for the anonymous comment above, the Inter-Entity_Boundary_Line is unguarded and crossing it pretty much resembles crossing a US state line.

Se the proposed division on the right hand image ->

--(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 14:07, 23 March 2009 (EDT)

It is unproblematic to go from one part to the other, as long as you keep to roads and paths (due to the risks of mines). But somehow I think its a bit too idealistic a division for wikivoyage - (which in a sense is also political), as it pretends theres no such thing as political issues? Also, what do you want to achieve with a division in parts? There are not many big articles in Bosnia, and it doesnt seem to make a lot of sense to make further subdivisions, whereas many towns are actually quite empty? -- (WT-en) Eiland 10:00, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Well seeing that the Bosnian tourist organisation has gone the same route, I'd like if you could expand your thoughts on the Republic/Federation division a little? Also while I know there is not much content, we also need to have a sensible hierarchy, that would work as coverage grows - I Don't think 5 regions are too much. What if we merged Posavina and Northern Bosnia into one region (and maybe less so Sarajevo & central)? I'm willing to take sensible advice here, I've only been in Bihac and Sarajevo (and the southern parts of Herzegovina before the war). --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 10:41, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Its in the interest of the BiH tourism agency to play down anything related to nationalistic tensions or other scary things, but that doesnt mean there arent any. But I agree to have the RS/Federation division is abit too much going with the flow of silly politicians. But this is a non-dicussion as long as there is no content - and i dont see it growing any time soon, so i wont spend too much time on it. I am going to Mostar for the weekend :) -- (WT-en) Eiland 11:28, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

bump, any other thoughts on this? --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 15:15, 18 May 2009 (EDT)

Bump again. This will soon be the last country left in Europe without a WT map or a region structure. Thoughts on Stefan's proposed scheme anyone? --(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:54, 21 April 2010 (EDT)

Given the facts that the travel between the entities can be done unimpededly, distinct banknotes of two entities are legal tender anywhere in the country, and language is not a barrier (Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are practically the same, though they use Cyrillic in Serbian part I guess), I don't see any reason not to implement Stefan's proposal; a hierarchy based on entities with such turning and twisting boundaries would be hard indeed. However, having a "North" just south of another region seems a little problematic to me, may "Northeast" be a better naming? – (WT-en) Vidimian 05:20, 21 April 2010 (EDT)

In fact, now I come to think of it, the B&H Tourism Association is the touristic agency of the Federation of BiH[2]. See the infobox I just made [3]. In principle, wikivoyage using this division can be interpreted as support for the unifying aspirations of the Federation; and against the strict entity border maintenance aspirations of the RS. But I wont push this unfair matter of fact :) -- (WT-en) Eiland 11:28, 22 January 2011 (EST)

Hi. That sounds like an interesting trivia. However, when added to the "regions" section as an infobox, it pushes the map below in a rather ugly way, at least in my small size screen (10.1", I guess?). So, it might be better if we move it to somewhere more suitable at "understand", perhaps in a section in which tourism in the country is discussed and perhaps as prose, rather than in an infobox. – (WT-en) Vidimian 17:24, 25 January 2011 (EST)

I agree it distorts the layout somewhat, so maybe its better to move it to understand. I prefer it the infobox, because it is not so important for tourists ("here you find a hotel") but it illustrates a bit the dynamics of the the current political situation. -- (WT-en) Eiland 06:13, 27 January 2011 (EST)

It looks good now, especially as it aligns (at least on my screen) with the "constitution" section, where the political entities are discussed. I've removed the "Did you know" part from its header, though, as that looks kind of cliché to start an infobox with such an expression. – (WT-en) Vidimian 06:51, 27 January 2011 (EST)

FOOD

Could you please make sure you SPELL things correctly if you plan to make edits to the FOOD section? I think this was a beautifully-written article and small edits, likely by the locals, are really messing up the spelling. If you plan to add something, by all means do, but go to a website like www.dictionary.com and make sure that the word you intend to add means what you *think* it means and assure that the spelling is correct!!! —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 216.232.195.232 (talk • contribs)

Regions listing colors

I see only white space next to the "Regions" listings for Herzegovina and Northeastern Bosnia. How did that happen? I've looked at the history back to 28 February, 2015 and still see the problem. More importantly, I hope someone will fix it. Thanks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Done. The hashtags before the color codes were missing. ϒpsilon (talk) 08:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, ϒpsilon. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Reconstructed mosque reopened

There is no article about the town of Foca, evidently. Should there be? If not, where should this mosque be listed? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48160101 Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

What about Foča — is this another town with the same name? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Looks like that's it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:00, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Good, the name of the correct article was actually listed on Foca which is a disambiguation page. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 03:24, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item is missing permission

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item is missing permission information and may be deleted:

• Landmines Bosnia.jpg

You can see the details at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:08, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

This sucks. The map is on the page, and the linked page has a copyright on it, so it will have to be removed, unless someone else understands the Serbo-Croatian text and it is not a generic copyright (the stupid page won't let me copy and paste the copyright notice, so that I could do a Google translation). Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:58, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

We sadly won't. The copyright notice on the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre website says "Sva prava zadržana" which means "All rights reserved" (according to Google Translate). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 12:08, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Landmines Bosnia.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Talk section

I wonder whether the Talk section should be tweaked.

I assume there are different opinions on whether Serbo-Croatian ever was a language, or purely a political construction, and on whether Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are. From a traveller's view, the important thing in Talk is to what extent the languages or language varieties are mutually intelligible – or whether a speaker of one understands the others. The political context should perhaps still be described, but I am afraid that the current description is one-sided. Also, the sentence "…differ only in the most academic of venues and also in traditional homes" is incomprehensible to me; if the languages differ in "traditional homes", then the difference isn't purely academic.

Another issue is the mixing in of religions: "vocabulary differences … do not hinder communication between Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs." I don't think this is the place to tell that Croats are mostly Catholic etc., and where we say it, we shouldn't say it in such an indirect way.

–LPfi (talk) 07:47, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The thing is, aren't Muslims an ethnic group in Bosnia? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:53, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The Bosniaks are. Most of them are Muslims, but there is hardly any relevant linguistic difference between Christian and Muslim Bosniaks. –LPfi (talk) 07:27, 14 September 2024 (UTC)