Demographics of Sarajevo - Historical Population

Historical Population

Historically Sarajevo had always been a very populous city, but as the Ottoman Empire declined, so did its population. Although it had around 100,000 people in the 1660s, by the end of World War II in the 1940s Sarajevo had only grown to some 115,000 people.

The population of the district of Sarajevo according to the 1921 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes religious population census:

• Serbian Orthodox Christians 55,477 (38.6%%)
• Sunni Muslims 50,270 (34.9%)
• Roman Catholic Christians 29,395 (20.4%)
• others 8,768 (6.1%)

In 1921 there were 8 municipalities and their populations were:

• Serbs comprised majority in 5 municipalities: Ilidža, Koševo, Pale, Rajlovac, and Trnovo.
• Bosniaks comprised majority in the City of Sarajevo and in 2 municipalities: Bjelašnica and Ozren.

The same year the City of Sarajevo had 78,173 inhabitants:

• Sunni Muslims 29,649 (37.9%)
• Roman Catholic Christians 21,373 (27.3%)
• Serbian Orthodox Christians 18,630 (23.8%)
• others 8,522 (11.0%)

Heavy industrialization and increased importance in regional affairs during the time of Yugoslavia resulted in a rapid increase however, and by the time of the 1984 Olympics the greater Sarajevo area had more than 500,000 residents. Although exact ethnic distribution is unknown, of these 500,000, 49% were Muslim, 30% Orthodox Christians, and 7% Catholics, indicating relatively corresponding percentages of Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats.

The Yugoslav wars and the resulting siege of Sarajevo radically disrupted this order of things. The city it self was completely surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces, and it has been estimated that some 12,000 people were killed, with another 50,000 wounded. Sarajevo Serbs and Croats of Sarajevo were forced to leave the city at the very beginning of the war and those that remained were never accounted for. Combined with horrific living conditions forced upon by the besieging forces, the result was thousands of refugees leaving the city. By 1996, Sarajevo had less than 300,000 residents. In the years that followed, a tremendous influx of returning refugees and people from a war-torn countryside has resulted in the city population once again going above 300,000 residents. Most of the Sarajevo Serbs and Croats have never returned to their homes.

The following are some recorded populations of Sarajevo throughout its history. The figures from 1626 and 1660 are based on the accounts of traveling writers who estimated that Sarajevo at the time had 20,000 houses, and figures an average of 5 people per house. All latter figures are based on official censuses by Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and Socialist Yugoslavia, except for 2002 which is an estimate by the Sarajevo Canton government. All figures after 1945 represent the greater Sarajevo area.