POLITICAL-GEOGRAPHICAL DETERMINANTS OF CONTEMPORARY GEODEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS TO TERRITORIAL POPULATION DISTRIBUTION

Complex political and geographical circumstances in geopolitical space of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the nineties of the last century, led to the entity division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to the criteria of the ethnic majority (Republic of Srpska) and bipolar ethno-geographic structure (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina). When accessing the issue, we start from the premise that contemporary demographic characteristics and processes in B&H have a political-geographical dimension. Mutual conditionality and interaction of political-geographical processes and demographic characteristics condition the sustainability of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a complex geopolitical unit, which is ultimately based on specific ethno-demographic formula 1+2+3, or more precisely, one country, two entities and three constituent people and religions. The subject of research in this paper will be essentially based on a comparative analysis of the Census in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1991 and 2013 and identification of demographic changes in territorial deployment and ethnic structure of the population. The purpose of this paper is to indicate that the political-geographical processes, military conflicts, specific consequences and recurrence of the war period in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the nineties of the last century had a decisive influence on the contemporary spatial distribution and ethnic composition of the population. The paper is planned to be realized by general, as well as special methods of geographical research and data processing techniques (statistical, cartographic, graphical, GIS analysis), which are consistent with research of influence of political-geographical processes to contemporary geodemographic characteristics of Bosnia and Herzegovina.