Bosnia and Herzegovina - Demographics

Demographics

Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to three ethnic "constituent peoples": Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Tensions between the three constitutional peoples remain high and often provoke political disagreements.

According to the 1991 census, Bosnia and Herzegovina had a population of 4,377,000, while the 1996 UNHCR unofficial census showed a decrease to 3,920,000. Large population migrations during the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s have caused demographic shifts in the country. No census has been taken since 1991/96, and political disagreements have made it impossible to organize one. Nevertheless, a census has been planned for 2012. As almost all of the post-war data is simply an estimate, a census would be a statistical, inclusive, and objective way to analyze the demographics of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Most sources, however, estimate the population to be about four million, representing a decrease of 500,000 since 1991. The last official estimate by BHAS (Agency for Statistics of BiH) for 2011 shows a decrease of the population to 3,840,000. Other BHAS estimation of population done on 30 June 2009 is 3,843,000.

Ethnically, according to data from 2000 cited by the CIA, Bosniak constitute 48% of the population, Serbs 37.1%, Croats 14.3%, and others 0.6%, including Jews, Roma, and Albanians. According to unofficial estimates from the Bosnian State Statistics Agency cited by the US Department of State in 2008, 45 percent of the population identify religiously as Muslim, 36 percent as Serb Orthodox, 15 percent as Roman Catholic, 1 percent as Protestant, and 3 percent other (mostly atheists, Jews, and others). Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are official languages, but all three are mutually intelligible standards of Serbo-Croatian.