title: Damascus

text: The Shia Fatimids gained control in 970, inflaming hostilities between them and the Sunni Arabs of the city who frequently revolted. A Turk, Alptakin drove out the Fatimids five years later, and through diplomacy, prevented the Byzantines during the Syrian campaigns of John Tzimiskes from attempting to annex the city. However, by 977, the Fatimids under Caliph al-Aziz, wrested back control of the city and tamed Sunni dissidents. The Arab geographer, al-Muqaddasi, visited Damascus in 985, remarking that the architecture and infrastructure of the city was "magnificent", but living conditions were awful. Under al-Aziz, the city saw a brief period of stability that ended with the reign of al-Hakim (996–1021). In 998, hundreds of Damascus' citizens were rounded up and executed by him for incitement. Three years after al-Hakim's mysterious disappearance, the Arab tribes of southern Syria formed an alliance to stage a massive rebellion against the Fatimids, but they were crushed by the Fatimid Turkish governor of Syria and Palestine, Anushtakin al-Duzbari, in 1029. This victory gave the latter mastery over Syria, displeasing his Fatimid overlords, but gaining the admiration of Damascus' citizens. He was exiled by Fatimid authorities to Aleppo where he died in 1041. From that date to 1063, there are no known records of the city's history. By then, Damascus lacked a city administration, had an enfeebled economy, and a greatly reduced population.


title: Damascus

text: With the arrival of the Seljuq Turks in the late 11th century, Damascus again became the capital of independent states. It was ruled by Abu Sa'id Taj ad-Dawla Tutush I starting in 1079 and he was succeeded by his son Abu Nasr Duqaq in 1095. The Seljuqs established a court in Damascus and a systematic reversal of Shia inroads in the city. The city also saw an expansion of religious life through private endowments financing religious institutions ("madrasas") and hospitals ("maristans"). Damascus soon became one of the most important centers of propagating Islamic thought in the Muslim world. After Duqaq's death in 1104, his mentor ("atabeg"), Toghtekin, took control of Damascus and the Burid line of the Seljuq dynasty. Under Duqaq and Toghtekin, Damascus experienced stability, elevated status and a revived role in commerce. In addition, the city's Sunni majority enjoyed being a part of the larger Sunni framework effectively governed by various Turkic dynasties who in turn were under the moral authority of the Baghdad-based Abbasids.


title: Damascus

text: While the rulers of Damascus were preoccupied in conflict with their fellow Seljuqs in Aleppo and Diyarbakir, the Crusaders, who arrived in the Levant in 1097, conquered Jerusalem, Mount Lebanon and Palestine. Duqaq seemed to have been content with Crusader rule as a buffer between his dominion and the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. Toghtekin, however, saw the Western invaders as a viable threat to Damascus which, at the time, nominally included Homs, the Beqaa Valley, Hauran, and the Golan Heights as part of its territories. With military support from Sharaf al-Din Mawdud of Mosul, Toghtekin managed to halt Crusader raids in the Golan and Hauran. Mawdud was assassinated in the Umayyad Mosque in 1109, depriving Damascus of northern Muslim backing and forcing Toghtekin to agree to a truce with the Crusaders in 1110. In 1126, the Crusader army led by Baldwin II fought Burid forces led by Toghtekin at Marj al-Saffar near Damascus; however, despite their tactical victory, the Crusaders failed in their objective to capture Damascus.


title: Damascus

text: Following Toghtekin's death in 1128, his son, Taj al-Muluk Buri, became the nominal ruler of Damascus. Coincidentally, the Seljuq prince of Mosul, Imad al-Din Zengi, took power in Aleppo and gained a mandate from the Abbasids to extend his authority to Damascus. In 1129, around 6,000 Isma'ili Muslims were killed in the city along with their leaders. The Sunnis were provoked by rumors alleging there was a plot by the Isma'ilis, who controlled the strategic fort at Banias, to aid the Crusaders in capturing Damascus in return for control of Tyre. Soon after the massacre, the Crusaders aimed to take advantage of the unstable situation and launch an assault against Damascus with nearly 2,000 knights and 10,000 infantry. However, Buri allied with Zengi and managed to prevent their army from reaching the city. Buri was assassinated by Isma'ili agents in 1132; he was succeeded by his son, Shams al-Mulk Isma'il who ruled tyrannically until he himself was murdered in 1135 on secret orders from his mother, Safwat al-Mulk Zumurrud; Isma'il's brother, Shihab al-Din Mahmud, replaced him. Meanwhile, Zengi, intent on putting Damascus under his control, married Safwat al-Mulk in 1138. Mahmud's reign then ended in 1139 after he was killed for relatively unknown reasons by members of his family. Mu'in al-Din Unur, his "mamluk" ("slave soldier") took effective power of the city, prompting Zengi—with Safwat al-Mulk's backing—to lay siege against Damascus the same year. In response, Damascus allied with the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem to resist Zengi's forces. Consequently, Zengi withdrew his army and focused on campaigns against northern Syria.


title: Damascus

text: In 1144, Zengi conquered Edessa, a crusader stronghold, which led to a new crusade from Europe in 1148. In the meantime Zengi was assassinated and his territory was divided among his sons, one of whom, Nur ad-Din, emir of Aleppo, made an alliance with Damascus. When the European crusaders arrived, they and the nobles of Jerusalem agreed to attack Damascus. Their siege, however, was a complete failure. When the city seemed to be on the verge of collapse, the crusader army suddenly moved against another section of the walls, and were driven back. By 1154, Damascus was firmly under Nur ad-Din's control.


title: Damascus

text: In 1164, King Amalric of Jerusalem invaded Fatimid Egypt, which requested help from Nur ad-Din. The Nur ad-Din sent his general Shirkuh, and in 1166 Amalric was defeated at the Battle of al-Babein. When Shirkuh died in 1169, he was succeeded by his nephew Yusuf, better known as Saladin, who defeated a joint crusader-Byzantine siege of Damietta. Saladin eventually overthrew the Fatimid caliphs and established himself as Sultan of Egypt. He also began to assert his independence from Nur ad-Din, and with the death of both Amalric and Nur ad-Din in 1174, he was well-placed to begin exerting control over Damascus and Nur ad-Din's other Syrian possessions. In 1177 Saladin was defeated by the crusaders at the Battle of Montgisard, despite his numerical superiority. Saladin also besieged Kerak in 1183, but was forced to withdraw. He finally launched a full invasion of Jerusalem in 1187, and annihilated the crusader army at the Battle of Hattin in July. Acre fell to Saladin soon after, and Jerusalem itself was captured in October. These events shocked Europe, resulting in the Third Crusade in 1189, led by Richard I of England, Philip II of France and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, though the last drowned en route.


title: Damascus

text: The surviving crusaders, joined by new arrivals from Europe, put Acre to a lengthy siege which lasted until 1191. After re-capturing Acre, Richard defeated Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf in 1191 and the Battle of Jaffa in 1192, recovering most of the coast for the Christians, but could not recover Jerusalem or any of the inland territory of the kingdom. The crusade came to an end peacefully, with the Treaty of Jaffa in 1192. Saladin allowed pilgrimages to be made to Jerusalem, allowing the crusaders to fulfil their vows, after which they all returned home. Local crusader barons set about rebuilding their kingdom from Acre and the other coastal cities.


title: Damascus

text: Saladin died in 1193, and there were frequent conflicts between different Ayyubid sultans ruling in Damascus and Cairo. Damascus was the capital of independent Ayyubid rulers between 1193 and 1201, from 1218 to 1238, from 1239 to 1245, and from 1250 to 1260. At other times it was ruled by the Ayyubid rulers of Egypt. During the internecine wars fought by the Ayyubid rulers, Damascus was besieged repeatedly, as, e.g., in 1229.


title: Damascus

text: The patterned Byzantine and Chinese silks available through Damascus, one of the Western termini of the Silk Road, gave the English language "damask".


title: Damascus

text: Ayyubid rule (and independence) came to an end with the Mongol invasion of Syria in 1260, in which the Mongols led by Kitbuqa entered the city on 1 March 1260, along with the King of Armenia, Hethum I, and the Prince of Antioch, Bohemond VI; hence, the citizens of Damascus saw for the first time for six centuries three Christian potentates ride in triumph through their streets. However, following the Mongol defeat at Ain Jalut on 3 September 1260, Damascus was captured five days later and became the provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate, ruled from Egypt, following the Mongol withdrawal. Following their victory at the Battle of Wadi al-Khaznadar, the Mongols led by Ghazan besieged the city for ten days, which surrendered between December 30, 1299, and January 6, 1300, though its Citadel resisted. Ghazan then retreated with most of his forces in February, probably because the Mongol horses needed fodder, and left behind about 10,000 horsemen under the Mongol general Mulay. Around March 1300, Mulay returned with his horsemen to Damascus, then followed Ghazan back across the Euphrates. In May 1300, the Egyptian Mamluks returned from Egypt and reclaimed the entire area without a battle. In April 1303, the Mamluks managed to defeat the Mongol army led by Kutlushah and Mulay along with their Armenian allies at the Battle of Marj al-Saffar, to put an end to Mongol invasions of the Levant. Later on, the Black Death of 1348–1349 killed as much as half of the city's population.


title: Damascus

text: In 1400, Timur, the Turco-Mongol conqueror, besieged Damascus. The Mamluk sultan dispatched a deputation from Cairo, including Ibn Khaldun, who negotiated with him, but after their withdrawal Timur sacked the city on 17 March 1401. The Umayyad Mosque was burnt and men and women taken into slavery. A huge number of the city's artisans were taken to Timur's capital at Samarkand. These were the luckier citizens: many were slaughtered and their heads piled up in a field outside the north-east corner of the walls, where a city square still bears the name "Burj al-Ru'us" (between modern-day Al-Qassaa and Bab Tuma), originally "the tower of heads".


title: Damascus

text: In early 1516, the Ottoman Empire, wary of the danger of an alliance between the Mamluks and the Persian Safavids, started a campaign of conquest against the Mamluk sultanate. On 21 September, the Mamluk governor of Damascus fled the city, and on 2 October the khutba in the Umayyad mosque was pronounced in the name of Selim I. The day after, the victorious sultan entered the city, staying for three months. On 15 December, he left Damascus by Bab al-Jabiya, intent on the conquest of Egypt. Little appeared to have changed in the city: one army had simply replaced another. However, on his return in October 1517, the sultan ordered the construction of a mosque, tekkiye and mausoleum at the shrine of Shaikh Muhi al-Din ibn Arabi in al-Salihiyah. This was to be the first of Damascus' great Ottoman monuments.


title: Damascus

text: The Ottomans remained for the next 400 years, except for a brief occupation by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt from 1832 to 1840. Because of its importance as the point of departure for one of the two great Hajj caravans to Mecca, Damascus was treated with more attention by the Porte than its size might have warranted—for most of this period, Aleppo was more populous and commercially more important. In 1559 the western building of Sulaymaniyya Takiyya, comprising a mosque and khan for pilgrims on the road to Mecca, was completed to a design by the famous Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, and soon afterwards the Salimiyya Madrasa was built adjoining it.


title: Damascus

text: Early in the nineteenth century, Damascus was noted for its shady cafes along the banks of the Barada. A depiction of these by William Henry Bartlett was published in 1836, along with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon, see . Under Ottoman rule, Christians and Jews were considered dhimmis and were allowed to practice their religious precepts. During the Damascus affair of 1840 the false accusation of ritual murder was brought against members of the Jewish community of Damascus. The massacre of Christians in 1860 was also one of the most notorious incidents of these centuries, when fighting between Druze and Maronites in Mount Lebanon spilled over into the city. Several thousand Christians were killed in June 1860, with many more being saved through the intervention of the Algerian exile Abd al-Qadir and his soldiers (three days after the massacre started), who brought them to safety in Abd al-Qadir's residence and the Citadel of Damascus. The Christian quarter of the old city (mostly inhabited by Catholics), including a number of churches, was burnt down. The Christian inhabitants of the notoriously poor and refractory Midan district outside the walls (mostly Orthodox) were, however, protected by their Muslim neighbors.


title: Damascus

text: American Missionary E.C. Miller records that in 1867 the population of the city was 'about' 140,000, of whom 30,000 were Christians, 10,000 Jews and 100,000 'Mohammedans' with fewer than 100 Protestant Christians. In the meantime, American writer Mark Twain visited Damascus, then wrote about his travel in "The Innocents Abroad", in which he mentioned: "Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of spring, blooming as thine own rose-bud, and fragrant as thine own orange flower, O Damascus, pearl of the East!". In November 1898, German emperor Wilhelm II toured Damascus, during his trip to the Ottoman Empire.


title: Damascus

text: In the early years of the 20th century, nationalist sentiment in Damascus, initially cultural in its interest, began to take a political coloring, largely in reaction to the turkicisation program of the Committee of Union and Progress government established in Istanbul in 1908. The hanging of a number of patriotic intellectuals by Jamal Pasha, governor of Damascus, in Beirut and Damascus in 1915 and 1916 further stoked nationalist feeling, and in 1918, as the forces of the Arab Revolt and the British Imperial forces approached, residents fired on the retreating Turkish troops.


title: Damascus

text: On 1 October 1918, T.E. Lawrence entered Damascus, the third arrival of the day, the first being the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade, led by Major A.C.N. 'Harry' Olden. Two days later, 3 October 1918, the forces of the Arab revolt led by Prince Faisal also entered Damascus. A military government under Shukri Pasha was named and Faisal ibn Hussein was proclaimed king of Syria. Political tension rose in November 1917, when the new Bolshevik government in Russia revealed the Sykes-Picot Agreement whereby Britain and France had arranged to partition the Arab east between them. A new Franco-British proclamation on 17 November promised the "complete and definitive freeing of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks." The Syrian National Congress in March adopted a democratic constitution. However, the Versailles Conference had granted France a mandate over Syria, and in 1920 a French army commanded by the General Mariano Goybet crossed the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, defeated a small Syrian defensive expedition at the Battle of Maysalun and entered Damascus. The French made Damascus capital of their League of Nations Mandate for Syria.


title: Damascus

text: When in 1925 the Great Syrian Revolt in the Hauran spread to Damascus, the French suppressed with heavy weaponry, bombing and shelling the city on 9 May 1926. As a result, the area of the old city between Al-Hamidiyah Souq and Medhat Pasha Souq was burned to the ground, with many deaths, and has since then been known as "al-Hariqa" ("the fire"). The old city was surrounded with barbed wire to prevent rebels infiltrating from the Ghouta, and a new road was built outside the northern ramparts to facilitate the movement of armored cars.


title: Damascus

text: On 21 June 1941, 3 weeks into the Allied Syria-Lebanon campaign, Damascus was captured from the Vichy French forces by a mixed British Indian and Free French force. The French agreed to withdraw in 1946, following the British intervention during the Levant Crisis, thus leading to the full independence of Syria. Damascus remained the capital.


title: Damascus

text: By January 2012, clashes between the regular army and rebels reached the outskirts of Damascus, reportedly preventing people from leaving or reaching their houses, especially when security operations there intensified from the end of January into February.


title: Damascus

text: By June 2012, bullets and shrapnel shells smashed into homes in Damascus overnight as troops battled the Free Syrian Army in the streets. At least three tank shells slammed into residential areas in the central Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun, according to activists. Intense exchanges of assault-rifle fire marked the clash, according to residents and amateur video posted online.


title: Damascus

text: The Damascus suburb of Ghouta suffered heavy bombing in December 2017 and a further wave of bombing started in February 2018, also known as Rif Dimashq Offensive.


title: Damascus

text: On 20 May 2018, Damascus and the entire Rif Dimashq Governorate came fully under government control for the first time in 7 years after the evacuation of IS from Yarmouk Camp. In September 2019, Damascus entered the "Guinness World Records" as the least liveable city, scoring 30.7 points on the Economist's Global Liveability Index in 2019, based on factors such as: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. However, the trend of being the least liveable city on Earth started in 2017, and continued as of 2022.


title: Damascus

text: The historical role that Damascus played as an important trade center has changed in recent years due to political development in the region as well as the development of modern trade. Most goods produced in Damascus, as well as in Syria, are distributed to countries of the Arabian peninsula. Damascus has also held an annual international trade exposition every fall, since 1954.


title: Damascus

text: The tourism industry in Damascus has a lot of potential, however the civil war has hampered these prospects. The abundance of cultural wealth in Damascus has been modestly employed since the late 1980s with the development of many accommodation and transportation establishments and other related investments. Since the early 2000s, numerous boutique hotels and bustling cafes opened in the old city which attract plenty of European tourists and Damascenes alike.


title: Damascus

text: Damascus is home to a wide range of industrial activity, such as textile, food processing, cement and various chemical industries. The majority of factories are run by the state, however limited privatization in addition to economic activities led by the private sector, were permitted starting in the early 2000s with the liberalization of trade that took place.


title: Damascus

text: The Damascus stock exchange formally opened for trade in March 2009, and the exchange is the only stock exchange in Syria. It is located in the Barzeh district, within Syria's financial markets and securities commission. Its final home is to be located in the upmarket business district of Yaafur.


title: Damascus

text: The estimated population of Damascus in 2011 was 1,711,000. Damascus is the center of a crowded metropolitan area with an estimated population of 5 million. The metropolitan area of Damascus includes the cities of Douma, Harasta, Darayya, Al-Tall and Jaramana.


title: Damascus

text: The city's growth rate is higher than Syria as a whole, primarily due to rural-urban migration and the influx of young Syrian migrants drawn by employment and educational opportunities. The migration of Syrian youths to Damascus has resulted in an average age within the city that is below the national average. Nonetheless, the population of Damascus is thought to have decreased in recent years as a result of the ongoing Syrian Civil War.


title: Damascus

text: The vast majority of Damascenes are Syrian Arabs. The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority, with a population of approximately 300,000. They reside primarily in the neighborhoods of Wadi al-Mashari ("Zorava" or "Zore Afa" in Kurdish) and Rukn al-Din. Other minorities include Syrian Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, Circassians and a small Greek community.


title: Damascus

text: Islam is the dominant religion. The majority of Muslims are Sunni while Alawites and Twelver Shi'a comprise sizeable minorities. Alawites live primarily in the Mezzeh districts of Mezzeh 86 and Sumariyah. Twelvers primarily live near the Shia holy sites of Sayyidah Ruqayya and Sayyidah Zaynab. It is believed that there are more than 200 mosques in Damascus, the most well-known being the Umayyad Mosque.


title: Damascus

text: Christians represent about 15%–20% of the population. Several Eastern Christian rites have their headquarters in Damascus, including the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, and the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. The Christian districts in the city are Bab Tuma, Qassaa and Ghassani. Each have many churches, most notably the ancient Chapel of Saint Paul and St Georges Cathedral in Bab Tuma. At the suburb of Soufanieh a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary have reportedly been observed between 1982 and 2004. A smaller Druze minority inhabits the city, notably in the mixed Christian-Druze suburbs of Tadamon, Jaramana, and Sahnaya. The Patriarchal See of the Syriac Orthodox is based in Damascus, Bab Toma. This church is independent of the Middle Eastern-based Syriac Orthodox Church in Damascus and has its own leadership and structure in India, although both practice the same or similar denomination of Christianity. There are 700,000 members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch in Syria, who are the bulk of the Christian population alongside 400,000 Assyrians/Syriacs and 30-100,000 Armenians and 350,000 Catholics.


title: Damascus

text: There was a small Jewish community namely in what is called "Haret al-Yahud" the Jewish quarter. They are the remnants of an ancient and much larger Jewish presence in Syria, dating back at least to Roman times, if not before to the time of King David.


title: Damascus

text: Sufism throughout the second half of the 20th century has been an influential current in the Sunni religious practises, particularly in Damascus. The largest women-only and girls-only Muslim movement in the world happens to be Sufi-oriented and is based in Damascus, led by Munira al-Qubaysi. Syrian Sufism has its stronghold in urban regions such as Damascus, where it also established political movements such as Zayd, with the help of a series of mosques, and clergy such as Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Sa'id Hawwa, Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri and Muhammad al-Yaqoubi.


title: Damascus

text: Damascus has a wealth of historical sites dating back to many different periods of the city's history. Since the city has been built up with every passing occupation, it has become almost impossible to excavate all the ruins of Damascus that lie up to below the modern level. The Citadel of Damascus is in the northwest corner of the Old City. The "Damascus Straight Street" (referred to in the account of the conversion of St. Paul in Acts 9:11), also known as the "Via Recta", was the decumanus (east–west main street) of Roman Damascus, and extended for over . Today, it consists of the street of Bab Sharqi and the Souk Medhat Pasha, a covered market. The Bab Sharqi street is filled with small shops and leads to the old Christian quarter of Bab Tuma (St. Thomas's Gate), where St George’s Cathedral, the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Church, is notably located. Medhat Pasha Souq is also a main market in Damascus and was named after Midhat Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Syria who renovated the Souk. At the end of the Bab Sharqi street, one reaches the House of Ananias, an underground chapel that was the cellar of Ananias's house. The Umayyad Mosque, also known as the Grand Mosque of Damascus, is one of the largest mosques in the world and also one of the oldest sites of continuous prayer since the rise of Islam. A shrine in the mosque is said to contain the body of St. John the Baptist. The mausoleum where Saladin was buried is located in the gardens just outside the mosque. Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque, the shrine of the youngest daughter of Husayn ibn Ali, can also be found near the Umayyad Mosque. The ancient district of Amara is also within a walking distance from these sites. Another heavily visited site is Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque, where the tomb of Zaynab bint Ali is located.


title: Damascus

text: Shias, Fatemids and Dawoodi Bohras believe that after the battle of Karbala (680 AD), in Iraq, the Umayyad Caliph Yezid brought Imam Husain's head to Damascus, where it was first kept in the courtyard of Yezid Mahal, now part of Umayyad Mosque complex. All other remaining members of Imam Husain's family (left alive after Karbala) along with heads of all other companions, who were killed at Karbala, were also brought to Damascus. These members were kept as prisoners on the outskirts of the city (near Bab al-Saghir), where the other heads were kept at the same location, now called Ru’ûs ash-Shuhadâ-e-Karbala or ganj-e-sarha-e-shuhada-e-Karbala. There is a qibla (place of worship) marked at the place, where devotees say Imam Ali-Zain-ul-Abedin used to pray while in captivity.


title: Damascus

text: The Harat Al Yehud or Jewish Quarter is a recently restored historical tourist destination popular among Europeans before the outbreak of civil war.


title: Damascus

text: The Old City of Damascus with an approximate area of 86.12 hectares is surrounded by ramparts on the northern and eastern sides and part of the southern side. There are seven extant city gates, the oldest of which dates back to the Roman period. These are, clockwise from the north of the citadel:


title: Damascus

text: Other areas outside the walled city also bear the name "gate": Bab al-Faraj, Bab Mousalla and Bab Sreija, both to the south-west of the walled city.


title: Damascus

text: Due to the rapid decline of the population of Old Damascus (between 1995 and 2009 about 30,000 people moved out of the old city for more modern accommodation), a growing number of buildings are being abandoned or are falling into disrepair. In March 2007, the local government announced that it would be demolishing Old City buildings along a stretch of rampart walls as part of a redevelopment scheme. These factors resulted in the Old City being placed by the World Monuments Fund on its 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world. It is hoped that its inclusion on the list will draw more public awareness to these significant threats to the future of the historic Old City of Damascus.


title: Damascus

text: In October 2010, Global Heritage Fund named Damascus one of 12 cultural heritage sites most "on the verge" of irreparable loss and destruction.


title: Damascus

text: Damascus is the main center of education in Syria. It is home to Damascus University, which is the oldest and largest university in Syria. After the enactment of legislation allowing private higher institutions, several new universities were established in the city and in the surrounding area, including:


title: Damascus

text: Damascus is linked with other major cities in Syria via a modern motorway network. The M5 connects Damascus with Homs, Hama, Aleppo and Turkey in the north and Jordan in the south. The M1 is going from Homs onto Latakia and Tartus.


title: Damascus

text: The M4 links the city with Al-Hasakah and Iraq. The M1 highway connects the city to the western Syria and Beirut.


title: Damascus

text: The main airport is Damascus International Airport, approximately away from the city, with connections to a few Middle Eastern cities. Before the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the airport had connectivity to many Asian, European, African, and, South American cities.


title: Damascus

text: Streets in Damascus are often narrow, especially in the older parts of the city, and speed bumps are widely used to limit the speed of vehicles. Many taxi companies operate in Damascus. Fares are regulated by law and taxi drivers are obliged to use a taximeter.


title: Damascus

text: Public transport in Damascus depends extensively on buses and minibuses. There are about one hundred lines that operate inside the city and some of them extend from the city center to nearby suburbs. There is no schedule for the lines, and due to the limited number of official bus stops, buses will usually stop wherever a passenger needs to get on or off. The number of buses serving the same line is relatively high, which minimizes the waiting time. Lines are not numbered, rather they are given captions mostly indicating the two end points and possibly an important station along the line. Between 2019 and 2022, more than 100 modern buses were delivered from China as part of the international agreement. These deliveries strengthened and modernized the public transport of Damascus.


title: Damascus

text: Served by Chemins de Fer Syriens, the former main railway station of Damascus was al-Hejaz railway station, about west of the old city. The station is now defunct and the tracks have been removed, but there still is a ticket counter and a shuttle to Damacus Qadam station in the south of the city, which now functions as the main railway station.


title: Damascus

text: In 2008, the government announced a plan to construct a Damascus Metro. The green line will be an essential west–east axis for the future public transportation network, serving Moadamiyeh, Sumariyeh, Mezzeh, Damascus University, Hijaz, the Old City, Abbassiyeen and Qaboun Pullman bus station. A four-line metro network is expected be in operation by 2050.


title: Damascus

text: Damascus was chosen as the 2008 Arab Capital of Culture. The preparation for the festivity began in February 2007 with the establishing of the Administrative Committee for "Damascus Arab Capital of Culture" by a presidential decree.


title: Damascus

text: Popular sports include football, basketball, swimming, tennis, table tennis, equestrian and chess. Damascus is home to many football clubs that participate in the Syrian Premier League including al-Jaish, al-Shorta, Al-Wahda and Al-Majd. Many Other sport clubs are located in several districts of the city: Barada SC, Al-Nidal SC, Al-Muhafaza, Qasioun SC, al-Thawra SC, Maysalun SC, al-Fayhaa SC, Dummar SC, al-Majd SC and al-Arin SC.


title: Damascus

text: The now modernized Al-Fayhaa Sports City features a basketball court and a hall that can accommodate up to 8,000 people. In late November 2021, Syria's national basketball team played there against Kazakhstan, making Damascus host of Syria's first international basketball tournament in almost two decades.


title: Damascus

text: The city also has a modern golf course located near the Ebla Cham Palace Hotel at the southeastern outskirts of Damascus.


title: Damascus

text: Damascus has busy nightlife. Coffeehouses offer Arabic coffee, tea and nargileh (water pipes). Card games, tables (backgammon variants), and chess are activities frequented in cafés. These coffeehouses have had in the past an international reputation, as indicated by Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poetical illustration, "Cafes in Damascus", to a picture by William Henry Bartlett in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837. Current movies can be seen at Cinema City which was previously known as Cinema Dimashq.


title: Damascus

text: Tishreen Park is one of the largest parks in Damascus. It is home to the annual Damascus Flower Show. Other parks include: al-Jahiz, al-Sibbki, al-Tijara, al-Wahda, etc.. The city's famous Ghouta oasis is also a weekend-destination for recreation. Many recreation centers operate in the city including sport clubs, swimming pools and golf courses. The Syrian Arab Horse Association in Damascus offers a wide range of activities and services for horse breeders and riders.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo ( ; , ; "see names in other languages") is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo Canton, East Sarajevo and nearby municipalities is home to 555,210 inhabitants. Located within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of the Balkans, a region of Southern Europe.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is the political, financial, social and cultural center of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a prominent center of culture in the Balkans. It exerts region-wide influence in entertainment, media, fashion and the arts. Due to its long history of religious and cultural diversity, Sarajevo is sometimes called the "Jerusalem of Europe" or "Jerusalem of the Balkans". It is one of a few major European cities to have a mosque, Catholic church, Eastern Orthodox church, and synagogue within the same neighborhood.


title: Sarajevo

text: Although there is evidence of human settlement in the area since prehistoric times, the modern city arose in the 15th century as an Ottoman stronghold, when the latter empire extended into Europe. Sarajevo has gained international renown several times throughout its history. In 1885, it 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, following San Francisco, California, of the United States. In 1914, it was the site of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a local Young Bosnia activist Gavrilo Princip, a murder that sparked World War I. This resulted in the end of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and the creation of the multicultural Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the Balkan region.


title: Sarajevo

text: Later, after World War II, the area came under control of the communist Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the republic also known as Second Yugoslavia. As Sarajevo was designated as this larger republic's capital, its population and businesses expanded rapidly, with investment in infrastructure and economic development.


title: Sarajevo

text: In 1984 the socialist republic hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, which marked a prosperous era for the city. However, after the start of the Yugoslav Wars, the city suffered the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare, for a total of 1,425 days, from April 1992 to February 1996. This was during the Bosnian War and the breakup of Yugoslavia, under nationalist ethnic passions that tore families apart and resulted in genocide and massacres.


title: Sarajevo

text: With continued post-war reconstruction in the aftermath, Sarajevo is the fastest growing city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The travel guide series "Lonely Planet" ranked Sarajevo as the 43rd best city in the world. In December 2009, it recommended Sarajevo as one of the top ten cities to visit in 2010.


title: Sarajevo

text: In 2011, Sarajevo was nominated as the 2014 European Capital of Culture. It was selected to host the European Youth Olympic Festival. In addition, in October 2019, Sarajevo was designated as a UNESCO Creative City for having placed culture at the center of its development strategies. It is also ranked as one of the world's eighteen Cities of Film.


title: Sarajevo

text: The name "Sarajevo" derives from the Turkish noun , meaning "palace" or "mansion" (from Persian , , of the same meaning). Scholars disagree on the origin of the "evo" attached to the end. In Slavic languages, the addition of "evo" may indicate a possessive noun, thereby making the name of Sarajevo, 'city of the palace."


title: Sarajevo

text: One theory is that the name may have been derived from the Ottoman Turkish term , first recorded in 1455, meaning "the plains around the palace" or simply "palace plains".


title: Sarajevo

text: However, in his "Dictionary of Turkish Loanwords", Abdulah Škaljić maintains that the "evo" ending is more likely to have come from the widespread Slavic suffix used to indicate place names, than from the Turkish ending . The first mention of the name Sarajevo was in a 1507 letter written by Firuz Bey. The official name during the 400 years of Ottoman rule was "Saraybosna" ("Palace of Bosnia"), which remains the city's name in Modern Turkish.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo has had many nicknames. The earliest is , the term Isa-Beg Ishaković used to describe the town he was going to build—which is Turkish for "city" (), in turn coming from the Persian (, meaning "city"). As Sarajevo developed, numerous nicknames came from comparisons to other cities in the Islamic world, i.e. "Damascus of the North" and "European Jerusalem"; the latter being the most popular.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is near the geometric center of the triangular-shaped Bosnia and Herzegovina and within the historical region of Bosnia proper. It is situated above sea level and lies in the Sarajevo valley, in the middle of the Dinaric Alps.


title: Sarajevo

text: The valley was once an expansive, fertile and green space, but considerable urban expansion and development took place following World War II. The city is surrounded by forested hills and five major mountains. The highest of the surrounding peaks is Treskavica at , followed by Bjelašnica mountain at , Jahorina at , Trebević at , and Igman the shortest at . The last four are also known as the Olympic Mountains of Sarajevo


title: Sarajevo

text: When the city hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, venues were constructed at these mountains for many winter sports events. The city is developed within hilly terrain; there are many steeply inclined streets and residences that seem to perch on the hillsides.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Miljacka river is one of the city's chief geographic features. It flows through the city from east through the center of Sarajevo to the west part of the city, where it eventually meets up with the Bosna river. Miljacka river is also known as "The Sarajevo River". Its source ("Vrelo Miljacke") is south of the town of Pale at the foothills of Mount Jahorina, several kilometers to the east of Sarajevo center. The Bosna's source, Vrelo Bosne near Ilidža (west Sarajevo), is another notable natural landmark and a popular destination for Sarajevans and other tourists. Several smaller rivers and streams such as Koševski Potok also run through the city and its vicinity.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is close to the center of the triangular shape of Bosnia and Herzegovina in southeastern Europe. The Sarajevo city proper consists of four municipalities (or "in Bosnian and Croatian: općina, in Serbian: opština"): Centar (Center), Novi Grad (New City), Novo Sarajevo (New Sarajevo), and Stari Grad (Old City), while the Sarajevo metropolitan area (Greater Sarajevo area) includes these and the neighbouring municipalities of Ilidža, Hadžići, Vogošća and Ilijaš.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Metropolitan area was reduced in the 1990s after the war and the Dayton-imposed administrative division of the country, with several municipalities partitioned along the border of the newly recognised Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS), creating several new municipalities which together form the city of Istočno Sarajevo in the Republika Srpska: Istočna Ilidza, Istočno Novo Sarajevo, Istočni Stari Grad, Lukavica, Pale (RS-section), and Trnovo (RS-section), along with the municipality of Sokolac (which was not traditionally part of the Sarajevo area and was not partitioned).


title: Sarajevo

text: The city has an urban area of . Veliki Park (Great park) is the largest green area in the center of Sarajevo. It's nestled between Titova, Koševo, Džidžikovac, Tina Ujevića and Trampina Streets and in the lower part there is a monument dedicated to the Children of Sarajevo.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo has either a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfb), or an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb), depending on if either the 0 °C or the -3 °C isotherms are used. Sarajevo's climate exhibits four seasons and uniformly spread precipitation, typical of both Cfb and Dfb climates. The proximity of the Adriatic Sea moderates Sarajevo's climate somewhat, although the mountains to the south of the city greatly reduce this maritime influence. The average yearly temperature is , with January ( on average) being the coldest month of the year and July ( on average) the warmest.


title: Sarajevo

text: The highest recorded temperature was on 19 August 1946, and on 23 August 2008 (41.0) while the lowest recorded temperature was on 25 January 1942. On average, Sarajevo has 7 days where the temperature exceeds and 4 days where the temperature drops below per year. The city typically experiences mildly cloudy skies, with an average yearly cloud cover of 45%.


title: Sarajevo

text: The cloudiest month is December (75% average cloud cover) while the clearest is August (37%). Moderate precipitation occurs fairly consistently throughout the year, with an average 75 days of rainfall. Suitable climatic conditions have allowed winter sports to flourish in the region, as exemplified by the 1984 Winter Olympics that were held in Sarajevo. Average winds are and the city has 1,769 hours of sunshine.


title: Sarajevo

text: Air pollution is a major issue in Sarajevo. According to the 2016 World Health Organization's Ambient Air Pollution Database, the annual average PM2.5 concentration in 2010 was estimated to be 30 μg/m based on PM10 measurement, which is 3 times higher than recommended by WHO Air Quality Guidelines for the annual average PM2.5. There are no recent direct long-term PM2.5 measurements available in Sarajevo and only estimates can be made from PM10, which is the less health-relevant than PM2.5. Real-time air quality data in the form of PM10, ozone, NO, CO and SO by the Federal Hydrometeorological Institute .


title: Sarajevo

text: One of the earliest findings of settlement in the Sarajevo area is that of the Neolithic Butmir culture. The discoveries at Butmir were made on the grounds of the modern-day Sarajevo suburb Ilidža in 1893 by Austro-Hungarian authorities during the construction of an agricultural school. The area's richness in flint was attractive to Neolithic humans, and the settlement flourished. The settlement developed unique ceramics and pottery designs, which characterize the Butmir people as a unique culture, as described at the International Congress of Archaeologists and Anthropologists meeting in Sarajevo in 1894.


title: Sarajevo

text: The next prominent culture in Sarajevo were the Illyrians. The ancient people, who considered most of the Western Balkans as their homeland, had several key settlements in the region, mostly around the river Miljacka and the Sarajevo valley. The Illyrians in the Sarajevo region belonged to the "Daesitiates", the last Illyrian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina to resist Roman occupation. Their defeat by the Roman emperor Tiberius in 9 AD marks the start of Roman rule in the region. The Romans never built up the region of modern-day Bosnia, but the Roman colony of Aquae Sulphurae was near the top of present-day Ilidža, and was the most important settlement of the time. After the Romans, the Goths settled the area, followed by the Slavs in the 7th century.


title: Sarajevo

text: During the Middle Ages, Sarajevo was part of the Bosnian province of Vrhbosna near the traditional center of the Kingdom of Bosnia. Though a city named "Vrhbosna" existed, the exact settlement in Sarajevo at this time is debated. Various documents note a place called "Tornik" in the region, most likely in the area of the Marijin Dvor neighborhood. By all indications, Tornik was a very small marketplace surrounded by a proportionally small village, and was not considered very important by Ragusan merchants.


title: Sarajevo

text: Other scholars say that "Vrhbosna" was a major town in the wider area of modern-day Sarajevo. Papal documents say that in 1238, a cathedral dedicated to Saint Paul was built in the area. Disciples of the notable saints Cyril and Methodius stopped in the region, founding a church near Vrelo Bosne. Whether or not the town was somewhere in the area of modern-day Sarajevo, the documents attest to its and the region's importance. There was also a citadel Hodidjed north-east to the Old City, dating from around 1263 until it was occupied by the Ottoman Empire in 1429.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo was founded by the Ottoman Empire in the 1450s upon its conquest of the region, with 1461 used as the city's founding date. The first Ottoman governor of Bosnia, Isa-Beg Ishaković, transformed the cluster of villages into a city and state capital by building a number of key structures, including a mosque, a closed marketplace, a public bath, a hostel, and of course the governor's castle ("Saray") which gave the city its present name. The mosque was named "Careva Džamija" (the Emperor's Mosque) in honor of Sultan Mehmed II. With the improvements, Sarajevo quickly grew into the largest city in the region. By the 15th century the settlement was established as a city, named "Bosna-Saraj", around the citadel in 1461.


title: Sarajevo

text: Following the expulsion of Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, and the invitation from the Ottoman Empire to resettle their population, Sephardic Jews arrived in Sarajevo, which over time would become a leading center of Sephardic culture and the Ladino language. Though relatively small in size, a Jewish quarter would develop over several blocks in Baščaršija.


title: Sarajevo

text: Many local Christians converted to Islam at this time. To accommodate the new pilgrims on the road to Mecca, in 1541, Gazi Husrev-beg's quartermaster Vekil-Harrach built a Pilgrim's mosque for which it is still known to this day as the Hadžijska Mosque.


title: Sarajevo

text: Under leaders such as the second governor Gazi Husrev-beg, Sarajevo grew at a rapid rate. Husrev-beg greatly shaped the physical city, as most of what is now the Old Town was built during his reign. Sarajevo became known for its large marketplace and numerous mosques, which by the middle of the 16th century numbered more than 100. At the peak of the empire, Sarajevo was the biggest and most important Ottoman city in the Balkans after Istanbul. By 1660, the population of Sarajevo was estimated to be over 80,000. By contrast, Belgrade in 1683 had 100,000, and Zagreb as late as 1851 had 14,000 people. As political conditions changed, Sarajevo became the site of warfare.


title: Sarajevo

text: In 1697, during the Great Turkish War, a raid was led by Prince Eugene of Savoy of the Habsburg monarchy against the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Sarajevo and left it plague-infected and burned to the ground. After his men had looted thoroughly, they set the city on fire and destroyed nearly all of it in one day. Only a handful of neighborhoods, some mosques, and an Orthodox church, were left standing. Numerous other fires weakened the city, which was later rebuilt but never fully recovered from the destruction. By 1807, it had only some 60,000 residents.


title: Sarajevo

text: In the 1830s, several battles of the Bosnian uprising had taken place around the city. These had been led by Husein Gradaščević. Today, a major city street is named "Zmaj od Bosne" (Dragon of Bosnia) in his honor. The rebellion failed and for several more decades, the Ottoman state remained in control of Bosnia.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Ottoman Empire made Sarajevo an important administrative centre by 1850. Baščaršija became the central commercial district and cultural center of the city in the 15th century when Isa-Beg Ishaković founded the town. The toponym Baščaršija derives from the Turkish language.


title: Sarajevo

text: Austria-Hungary's occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina came in 1878 as part of the Treaty of Berlin, and complete annexation followed in 1908, angering the Serbs. Sarajevo was industrialized by Austria-Hungary, who used the city as a testing area for new inventions such as tramways, which were established in 1885 before they were later installed in Vienna. Architects and engineers wanting to help rebuild Sarajevo as a modern European capital rushed to the city. A fire that burned down a large part of the central city area ("čaršija") left more room for redevelopment. As a result, the city has a unique blend of the remaining Ottoman city market and contemporary western architecture. Sarajevo also has some examples of Secession- and Pseudo-Moorish styles that date from this period.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Austro-Hungarian period was one of great development for the city, as the Western power brought its new acquisition up to the standards of the Victorian age. Various factories and other buildings were built at this time, and a large number of institutions were both Westernized and modernized. For the first time in history, Sarajevo's population began writing in Latin script.


title: Sarajevo

text: For the first time in centuries, the city significantly expanded outside its traditional borders. Much of the city's contemporary central municipality (Centar) was constructed during this period.


title: Sarajevo

text: Architecture in Sarajevo quickly developed into a wide range of styles and buildings. The Sacred Heart Cathedral, for example, was constructed using elements of neo-gothic and Romanesque architecture. The National Museum, Sarajevo brewery, and City Hall were also constructed during this period. Additionally, Austrian officials made Sarajevo the first city in this part of Europe to have a tramway.


title: Sarajevo

text: Although the Bosnia Vilayet "de jure" remained part of the Ottoman Empire, it was "de facto" governed as an integral part of Austria-Hungary with the Ottomans having no say in its day-to-day governance. This lasted until 1908 when the territory was formally annexed and turned into a condominium, jointly controlled by both Austrian Cisleithania and Hungarian Transleithania.


title: Sarajevo

text: In the event that triggered World War I, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, along with his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian and self-declared Yugoslav, and member of Young Bosnia. This was followed by the Anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo, which resulted in two deaths and destruction of property.


title: Sarajevo

text: In the ensuing war, however, most of the Balkan offensives occurred near Belgrade, and Sarajevo largely escaped damage and destruction. Following the war, Bosnia was annexed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and Sarajevo became the capital of the Drina Province.


title: Sarajevo

text: After World War I and pressure from the Royal Serbian Army, alongside rebelling Slavic nations in Austria-Hungary, Sarajevo became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Though it held some political significance as the center of first the Bosnian region and then the Drinska Banovina, the city was no longer a national capital and saw a decline in global influence.


title: Sarajevo

text: During World War II, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's army was overrun by German and Italian forces. Following a German bombing campaign, Sarajevo was captured on 15 April 1941 by the 16th Motorized infantry Division. The Axis powers created the Independent State of Croatia and included Sarajevo in its territory.


title: Sarajevo

text: Immediately following the occupation, the main Sephardi Jewish synagogue, Il Kal Grande, was looted, burned, and destroyed by the Nazis. Within a matter of months, the centuries-old Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Sarajevo, comprising the vast majority of Bosnian Jewry, would be rounded up in the Old Synagogue (Stari hram) and deported to their deaths in Croatian concentration camps. Roughly 85% of Bosnia's Jewish population would perish at the hands of the Nazis and the Ustaše during the Holocaust in the region. The Sarajevo Haggadah was the most important artifact which survived this period, smuggled out of Sarajevo and saved from the Nazis and Ustaše by the chief librarian of the National Museum, Derviš Korkut.


title: Sarajevo

text: On 12 October 1941, a group of 108 notable Bosniak citizens of Sarajevo signed the Resolution of Sarajevo Muslims by which they condemned the Genocide of Serbs organized by the Ustaše, made a distinction between the Bosniaks who participated in such persecutions and the rest of the Bosniak population, presented information about the persecutions of Bosniaks by Serbs, and requested security for all citizens of the country, regardless of their identity. During the summer of 1941, Ustaše militia periodically interned and executed groups of Sarajevo Serbs. In August 1941, they arrested about one hundred Serbs suspected of ties to the resistance armies, mostly church officials and members of the intelligentsia, and executed them or deported them to concentration camps. By mid-summer 1942, around 20,000 Serbs found refuge in Sarajevo from Ustaše terror.


title: Sarajevo

text: The city was bombed by the Allies from 1943 to 1944. The Yugoslav Partisan movement was represented in the city. In the period February–May 1945, Maks Luburić set up an Ustaše headquarters in a building known as Villa Luburić and used it as a torture and execution place whose 323 victims were identified after the war. The resistance was led by Vladimir Perić Valter, who died while leading the liberation of the city on 6 April 1945.


title: Sarajevo

text: After the war, Sarajevo was the capital of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Republic Government invested heavily in Sarajevo, building many new residential blocks in the municipalities of Novi Grad and Novo Sarajevo, while simultaneously developing the city's industry and transforming Sarajevo into a modern city. Sarajevo grew rapidly as it became an important regional industrial center in Yugoslavia. Between the end of the war and the end of Yugoslavia, the city grew from a population of 115,000 to more than 600,000 people. The Vraca Memorial Park, a monument for victims of World War II, was dedicated on 25 November, the "Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina" when the ZAVNOBIH held their first meeting in 1943.


title: Sarajevo

text: A crowning moment of Sarajevo's time in Socialist Yugoslavia was the 1984 Winter Olympics. Sarajevo beat out Sapporo, Japan and Falun/Gothenburg, Sweden to host the Olympic Games. The games were followed by a tourism boom, making the 1980s one of the city's most prosperous decades.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Bosnian War for independence resulted in large-scale destruction and dramatic population shifts during the Siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1996. Thousands of Sarajevans lost their lives under the constant bombardment and sniper shooting at civilians by the Serb forces during the siege, the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Bosnian Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996.


title: Sarajevo

text: When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia and achieved United Nations recognition, Serbian leaders declared a new Serbian national state Republika Srpska (RS) which was carved out from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Army of Republika Srpska encircled Sarajevo with a siege force of 18,000 stationed in the surrounding hills, from which they assaulted the city with artillery, mortars, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine-guns, multiple rocket launchers, rocket-launched aircraft bombs, and sniper rifles. From 2 May 1992, the Serbs blockaded the city. The Bosnian government defence forces inside the besieged city were poorly equipped and unable to break the siege.


title: Sarajevo

text: During the siege, 11,541 people lost their lives, including over 1,500 children. An additional 56,000 people were wounded, including nearly 15,000 children. The 1991 census indicates that before the siege the city and its surrounding areas had a population of 525,980.


title: Sarajevo

text: When the siege ended, the concrete scars caused by mortar shell explosions left marks that were filled with red resin. After the red resin was placed, it left floral patterns which led to them being dubbed Sarajevo Roses. Division of the territory according to the Dayton Agreement resulted in a mass exodus in early 1996 of some 62,000 Sarajevo Serbs from the city and its suburbs, creating today's more monoethnic post-war city.


title: Sarajevo

text: Various modern buildings now occupy Sarajevo's skyline, most significantly the Bosmal City Center, BBI Centar, Sarajevo City Center (all the three by architect Sead Gološ) and the Avaz Twist Tower, which at the time of its building was the tallest skyscraper in former Yugoslavia.


title: Sarajevo

text: Recent years have seen population growth as well as increases in tourism. In 2014, the city saw anti-government protests and riots and record rainfall that caused historic flooding.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is the capital of the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its sub-entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as of the Sarajevo Canton. It is also the "de jure" capital of another entity, Republika Srpska. Each of these levels of government has its parliament or council, as well as judicial courts, in the city. All national institutions and foreign embassies are in Sarajevo.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is home to the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the operational command of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Sarajevo

text: Bosnia and Herzegovina's Parliament office in Sarajevo was damaged heavily in the Bosnian War. Due to damage, the staff and documents were moved to a nearby ground-level office to resume work. In late 2006, reconstruction work started on Parliament and was finished in 2007. The cost of reconstruction was 80% funded by the Greek Government through the Hellenic Program of Balkans Reconstruction (ESOAV), and 20% by Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Sarajevo

text: The City of Sarajevo comprises four municipalities: Centar, Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, and Stari Grad. Each operate their own municipal government, while united they form one city government with its own constitution. The executive branch () consists of a mayor, with two deputies and a cabinet. The legislative branch consists of the City Council, or "Gradsko vijeće". The council has 28 members, including a council speaker, two deputies, and a secretary. Councilors are elected by the municipality in numbers roughly proportional to their population. The City Statute requires the city council to include at least six councillors from each constituent people and at least two from the ranks of Others.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo's Municipalities are further split into "local communities" (Bosnian, "Mjesne zajednice"). Local communities have a small role in city government and are intended as a way for ordinary citizens to get involved in city government. They are based on key neighborhoods in the city.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo's large manufacturing, administrative, and tourism sectors make it the strongest economic region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Indeed, Sarajevo Canton generates almost 25% of the country's GDP. After years of war, Sarajevo's economy saw reconstruction and rehabilitation programs. The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina opened in Sarajevo in 1997 and the Sarajevo Stock Exchange began trading in 2002.


title: Sarajevo

text: While Sarajevo had a large industrial base during its communist period, only a few pre-existing businesses have successfully adapted to the market economy. Sarajevo industries now include tobacco products, furniture, hosiery, automobiles, and communication equipment. Companies based in Sarajevo include BH Telecom, Bosnalijek, Energopetrol, Sarajevo Tobacco Factory, and Sarajevska pivara (Sarajevo Brewery).


title: Sarajevo

text: In 2019, the total export for the Sarajevo Canton was worth about 1,427,496,000 KM. Most of Sarajevo's exports (20.55%) head to Germany, with Serbia and Croatia following behind at 12% respectively. The largest amount of imported goods come from Croatia, at 20.95%. With a worth of total import at about 4,872,213,000 KM, the total import is almost 3.4 times the total export.


title: Sarajevo

text: In 1981, Sarajevo's GDP per capita was 133% of the Yugoslav average. Gross pay in Sarajevo in 2019 was or , while net salary was or .


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo has a wide tourist industry and a fast expanding service sector thanks to the strong annual growth in tourist arrivals. Sarajevo also benefits from being both a summer and winter destination with continuity in its tourism throughout the year. The travel guide series, "Lonely Planet" 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.


title: Sarajevo

text: In 2019, 733,259 tourists visited Sarajevo, giving 1,667,545 overnight stays, which was 20% more than in 2018.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sports-related tourism uses the legacy facilities of the 1984 Winter Olympics, especially the skiing facilities on the nearby mountains of Bjelašnica, Igman, Jahorina, Trebević, and Treskavica. Sarajevo's 600 years of history, influenced by both Western and Eastern empires, makes it a tourist attraction with splendid variations.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo has hosted travellers for centuries, because it was an important trading center during the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires and because it was a natural stop for many routes between East and West. Examples of popular destinations in Sarajevo include the Vrelo Bosne park, the Sarajevo cathedral, and the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque. Tourism in Sarajevo is chiefly focused on historical, religious, cultural sites and winter sports.


title: Sarajevo

text: There are many parks throughout the city and on the outskirts. A popular activity among locals is street chess, usually played at Trg Oslobođenja - Alija Izetbegović. Veliki Park is the largest green area in the center of Sarajevo. It is nestled between Titova, Koševo, Džidžikovac, Tina Ujevića and Trampina Streets and in the lower part, there is a monument dedicated to the Children of Sarajevo. Hastahana is a popular place to relax in the Austro-Hungarian neighborhood of Marijin Dvor. Goat's Bridge, locally known as "Kozija Ćuprija", in the Miljacka Canyon is also a popular park destination along the Dariva walkway and river Miljacka. On 24 December 2012, a park hosting two brass sculptures resembling two mourning mothers was dedicated as the Friendship Park, commemorating over 45 years of friendship between Sarajevo and Baku.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is also famous for its city lookouts; including an observation deck on Avaz Twist Tower, Park Prinčeva restaurant, Vidikovac lookout (Mt. Trebević), Zmajevac lookout and Yellow/White fortresses lookouts (in Vratnik) as well as numerous other rooftops throughout the city (i.e. Alta Shopping Center, BBI Centar, Hotel Hecco Deluxe). A symbol of Sarajevo is the Trebević cable car which was reconstructed in 2018, also it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city taking visitors from the city center to Mount Trebević.


title: Sarajevo

text: There is also a UNESCO tentative monument, the Old Jewish Cemetery, almost 500 years old site that is the second-largest Jewish sepulchral complex in Europe, the one in Prague being the largest. It is also one of the most significant memorial complexes in the world. It represents the eternal proof of coexistence of two or more different confessions under different administrations and rules, and the proof of mutual respect and tolerance.


title: Sarajevo

text: Thanks to steady but constant and stable growth after the war, today's built-up area that includes not only previously mentioned urban municipalities but the urban part of Hadžići that is uninterruptedly connected to Ilidža, the westernmost part of the Sarajevo urban settlement, is inhabited by more than 419,000 people, while the metro area including 8 additional municipalities, 14 in total goes up to 555,210 inhabitants. It is noticeable that the fastest-growing municipalities are Novi Grad, one of the main ones and the most inhabited one where the population has increased by almost 4,000 people or 2.95% since the 2013 census, and Ilidža that has recorded an increase of almost 7% since 2013.


title: Sarajevo

text: In June 2016, the final results of the 2013 census were published. According to the census, the population of the Sarajevo Canton was 413,593, with 55,181 residents in Centar, 118,553 in Novi Grad, 64,814 in Novo Sarajevo and 36,976 in Stari Grad.


title: Sarajevo

text: The last official Yugoslav census took place in 1991 and recorded 527,049 people living in the city of Sarajevo (ten municipalities). In the settlement of Sarajevo proper, there were 454,319 inhabitants. The war displaced hundreds of thousands of people, a large majority of whom have not returned.


title: Sarajevo

text: The war changed the ethnic and religious profile of the city. It had long been a multicultural city, and often went by the nickname of "Europe's Jerusalem". At the time of the 1991 census, 49.2 per cent of the city's population of 527,049 were Bosniaks, 29.8 percent Serbs, 10.7 percent Yugoslavs, 6.6 percent Croats and 3.6 percent other ethnicities (Jews, Romas, etc.).


title: Sarajevo

text: According to academic Fran Markowitz, there are a number of "administrative apparatuses and public pressures that push people who might prefer to identify as flexible, multiply constituted hybrids or with one of the now unnamed minority groups into one of the three Bosniac-Croat-Serb constituent nations". These include respondents being encouraged by census interviewers to identity as belonging to one of the three constituent peoples. Her analysis of marriage registration data shows, for instance, that 67 percent of people marrying in 2003 identified as Bosniak or Muslim, which is significantly lower than the 79.6 percent census figure from 2002 (unlike the census, where people respond to an interviewer, applicants to the marriage registry fill in the form themselves).


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo's location in a valley between mountains makes it a compact city. Narrow city streets and a lack of parking areas restrict automobile traffic but allow better pedestrian and cyclist mobility. The two main roads are Titova Ulica (Street of Marshal Tito) and the east–west Zmaj od Bosne (Dragon of Bosnia) highway (E761). Located roughly at the center of the country, Sarajevo is Bosnia's main intersection. The city is connected to all the other major cities by highway or national road like Zenica, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Mostar, Goražde and Foča.


title: Sarajevo

text: Tourists from Central Europe and elsewhere visiting Dalmatia driving via Budapest through Sarajevo also contribute to the traffic congestion in and around Sarajevo. The trans-European highway, Corridor Vc, runs through Sarajevo connecting it to Budapest in the north, and Ploče at the Adriatic sea in the south. The highway is being built by the government and should cost 3.5 billion Euro. Up until March 2012, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina invested around 600 million Euro in the A1. In 2014, the sections Sarajevo-Zenica and Sarajevo-Tarčin were completed including the Sarajevo Beltway ring road.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo's electric tramways, in operation since 1884 and electrified since 1895, are the oldest form of public transportation in the city.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo had the first full-time (dawn to dusk) tram line in Europe, and the second in the world. Opened on New Year's Day in 1885, it was the testing line for the tram in Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and operated by horses. Originally built to , the present system in 1960 was upgraded to . The trams played a pivotal role in the growth of the city in the 20th century.


title: Sarajevo

text: There are seven tramway lines supplemented by five trolleybus lines and numerous bus routes. The main railroad station in Sarajevo is in the north-central area of the city. From there, the tracks head west before branching off in different directions, including to industrial zones in the city. Sarajevo is undergoing a major infrastructure renewal; many highways and streets are being repaved, the tram system is undergoing modernization, and new bridges and roads are under construction.


title: Sarajevo

text: To solve traffic congestion in the city, Sarajevo-based architect Muzafer Osmanagić proposed a study called "Eco Energy 2010–2015", proposing a subway system underneath the bed of the river Miljacka. The first line of Metro Sarajevo would connect Baščaršija with Otoka. This line would cost some 150 million KM and be financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo has daily international connections which twice a day connect the city with Zagreb and Ploče. There are also connections between Sarajevo and all major cities within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Once, the East Bosnian railway connected Sarajevo to Belgrade.


title: Sarajevo

text: Trebević Cable Car, Sarajevo's key landmark during the 1984 Winter Olympics, was rebuilt by JKP GRAS Sarajevo and Sarajevo Canton as one of the new transportation systems in 2017 and it reopened on 6 April 2018 at 11:00 AM. The cable car runs from Sarajevo at Bistrik station to the slopes of Trebević at Vidikovac station.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo International Airport , also called Butmir, is just a few kilometers southwest of the city and was voted Best European Airport With Under 1,000,000 Passengers at the 15th Annual ACI-Europe in Munich in 2005.


title: Sarajevo

text: The first regular flights to Sarajevo using an airfield in the suburb of Butmir begin in 1930 when the domestic airliner Aeroput opened a regular route linking Belgrade to Podgorica through Sarajevo. Later, Aeroput opened a route which linked Sarajevo with Split, Rijeka and Dubrovnik, and in 1938, the first international flights were introduced when Aeroput extended the route Dubrovnik – Sarajevo – Zagreb to Vienna, Brno and Prague. The airfield in Butmir remained in use all the way until 1969. The need for a new airport in Sarajevo, with an asphalt-concrete runway, was acknowledged in the mid-1960s when JAT, the Yugoslav national carrier at that time, began acquiring jet planes. The construction of the airport began in 1966 at its present location, not far from the old one.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo Airport opened on 2 June 1969 for domestic traffic. In 1970, Frankfurt became the first international destination served. Most of the time the airport was a 'feeder' airport where passengers embarked for flights to Zagreb and Belgrade on their way to international destinations. Over time, the traffic volume steadily grew from 70,000 to 600,000 passengers a year. Later, during the Bosnian War, the airport was used for UN flights and humanitarian relief. Since the Dayton Agreement in 1995, the airport retook its role as the main air gate to Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Sarajevo

text: In 2017, 957,971 passengers travelled through the airport, which was 61,4% of the total airport traffic in Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Sarajevo

text: Plans for extension of the passenger terminal, together with upgrading and expanding the taxiway and apron, started in the fall of 2012. The existing terminal was expanded by approximately . The upgraded airport was directly linked to the commercial retail center Sarajevo Airport Center, making it easier for tourists and travellers to spend their time before flight boarding shopping and enjoying the many amenities that are offered. Between 2015 and 2018, the airport was upgraded for more than 25 million euros.


title: Sarajevo

text: As the largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo is the main center of the country's media. Most of the communications and media infrastructure was destroyed during the war but reconstruction monitored by the Office of the High Representative has helped to modernize the industry as a whole. For example, the Internet was first made available to the city in 1995.


title: Sarajevo

text: "Oslobođenje" (Liberation), founded in 1943, is Sarajevo's longest-running continuously circulating newspaper and the only one to survive the war. However, this long-running and trusted newspaper has fallen behind "Dnevni avaz" (Daily Voice), founded in 1995, and "Jutarnje Novine" (Morning News) in circulation in Sarajevo. Other local periodicals include the Croatian newspaper Hrvatska riječ and the Bosnian magazine Start, as well as weekly newspapers "Slobodna Bosna" ("Free Bosnia") and "BH Dani" ("BH Days"). "Novi Plamen", a monthly magazine, is the most left-wing publication.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHRT) is Sarajevo's public television station and was created in 1945 under the umbrella of the Yugoslav Radio Television (JRT). It had its first television program aired in 1961, while continuous programming started in 1969. It is one of three main TV stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other stations based in the city include Hayat TV, O Kanal, OBN, TV Kantona Sarajevo and TV Alfa.


title: Sarajevo

text: The headquarters of Al Jazeera Balkans is also in Sarajevo, with a broadcasting studio at the top of the BBI Centar. The news channel covers Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro and the surrounding Balkan states.


title: Sarajevo

text: Many small independent radio stations exist, including established stations such as Radio M, RSG Radio (Radio Old Town), Studentski eFM Radio, Radio 202 and Radio BIR. Radio Free Europe, as well as several American and Western European stations are available.


title: Sarajevo

text: Higher education has a long and rich tradition in Sarajevo. The first institution that can be classified as a tertiary educational institution was a school of Sufi philosophy established by Gazi Husrev-beg in 1537; numerous other religious schools have been established over time. In 1887, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a Sharia Law School began a five-year program. In the 1940s, the University of Sarajevo became the city's first secular higher education institute, effectively building upon the foundations established by the Saraybosna Hanıka in 1537. In the 1950s, post-bachelor graduate degrees became available. Severely damaged during the war, it was recently rebuilt in partnership with more than 40 other universities.


title: Sarajevo

text: , there are 46 elementary schools (Grades 1–9) and 33 high schools (Grades 10–13) in Sarajevo, including three schools for children with special needs.


title: Sarajevo

text: There are also several international schools in Sarajevo, catering to the expatriate community; some of which are Sarajevo International School and the French International School of Sarajevo, established in 1998.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo has been home to many different religions for centuries, giving the city a range of diverse cultures. In the time of Ottoman occupation of Bosnia, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Sephardi Jews all shared the city while maintaining distinctive identities. They were joined during the brief occupation by Austria-Hungary by a smaller number of Germans, Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs and Ashkenazi Jews. By 1909, about 50% of the city's inhabitants were Muslim, 25% were Catholic, 15% were Orthodox, and 10% were Jewish.


title: Sarajevo

text: Historically, Sarajevo has been home to several prominent Bosnian poets, scholars, philosophers and writers. To list only a very few; Nobel Prize-winner Vladimir Prelog is from the city, as are the writer Zlatko Topčić and the poet Abdulah Sidran. Nobel Prize-winner Ivo Andrić attended high school in Sarajevo for two years. Academy Award-winning director Danis Tanović lives in the city.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Sarajevo National Theatre is the oldest professional theater in Bosnia and Herzegovina, having been established in 1921.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is rich in museums, including the Museum of Sarajevo, the Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art, Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Museum of Literature and Theatre Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina (established in 1888) home to the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript and the oldest Sephardic Jewish document in the world issued in Barcelona around 1350, containing the traditional Jewish Haggadah, is on permanent display at the museum. It is the only remaining illustrated Sephardic Haggadah in the world. The National Museum also hosts year-round exhibitions pertaining to local, regional and international culture and history, and exhibits over 5,000 artefacts from Bosnia's history.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Alija Izetbegović Museum was opened on 19 October 2007 and is in the old town fort, more specifically in the Vratnik Kapija towers Ploča and Širokac. The museum is a commemoration of the influence and body of work of Alija Izetbegović, the first president of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo is also home to the War Childhood Museum, an independent non-for-profit museum containing personal belongings from the war and showing stories behind them. In addition, in 2018, the museum won the Council of Europe Museum Prize award for best museum.


title: Sarajevo

text: The city also hosts the Sarajevo National Theatre, established in 1921, and the Sarajevo Youth Theatre. Some other cultural institutions include the Center for Sarajevo Culture, Sarajevo City Library, National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Bosniak Institute, a privately owned library and art collection focusing on Bosniak history.


title: Sarajevo

text: Demolitions associated with the war, as well as reconstruction, destroyed several institutions and cultural or religious symbols including the Gazi Husrev-beg Library, the national library, the Sarajevo Oriental Institute, and a museum dedicated to the 1984 Winter Olympics. Consequently, the different levels of government established strong cultural protection laws and institutions. Bodies charged with cultural preservation in Sarajevo include the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina (and their Sarajevo Canton counterpart), and the Bosnia and Herzegovina Commission to Preserve National Monuments.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is and has historically been one of the most important musical enclaves in the region. The Sarajevo school of pop rock developed in the city between 1961 and 1991. This type of music began with bands like Indexi, Kodeksi, and singer-songwriter Kemal Monteno. It continued into the 1980s, with bands such as Plavi orkestar, Crvena jabuka, and Divlje jagode, by most accounts, pioneering the regional rock and roll movement. Sarajevo was also the home and birthplace of arguably the most popular and influential Yugoslav rock band of all time, Bijelo Dugme, somewhat of a Bosnian parallel to the Rolling Stones, in both popularity and influence.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo was also the home of a very notable post-punk urban subculture known as the New Primitives, which began during the early 1980s with the Baglama Band which was banned shortly after its first LP and was brought into the mainstream through bands such as Zabranjeno Pušenje and Elvis J. Kurtović & His Meteors, as well as the "Top lista nadrealista" radio, and later television show. Other notable bands considered to be part of this subculture are Bombaj Štampa. Besides and separately from the New Primitives, Sarajevo is the hometown to one of the most significant ex-Yugoslavian alternative industrial-noise bands, SCH.


title: Sarajevo

text: Perhaps more importantly, Sarajevo in the late 19th and throughout the 20th century was home to a burgeoning and large center of Sevdalinka record-making and contributed greatly to bringing this historical genre of music to the mainstream, which had for many centuries been a staple of Bosnian culture. Songwriters and musicians such as Himzo Polovina, Safet Isović, Zaim Imamović, Zehra Deović, Halid Bešlić, Hanka Paldum, Nada Mamula, Meho Puzić and many more composed and wrote some of their most important pieces in the city.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo also greatly influenced the pop scene of Yugoslavia with musicians like Zdravko Čolić, Kemal Monteno, Dino Merlin, Seid Memić Vajta, Hari Mata Hari, Mladen Vojičić Tifa, Željko Bebek and many more.


title: Sarajevo

text: Many newer Sarajevo-based bands have also found a name and established themselves in Sarajevo, such as Regina who also had two albums out in Yugoslavia and Letu Štuke, who actually formed their band in Yugoslavia with the famous Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon and got their real breakthrough later in the 2000s. Sarajevo is now home to an important and eclectic mix of new bands and independent musicians, which continue to thrive with the ever-increasing number of festivals, creative showcases and concerts around the country. The city is also home to the region's largest jazz festival, the Jazz Fest Sarajevo.


title: Sarajevo

text: American heavy metal band Savatage, released a song entitled "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)" on their 1995 album "Dead Winter Dead", which was about a cello player playing a forgotten Christmas carol in war-torn Sarajevo. The song was later re-released by the same band under the name Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their 1996 debut album "Christmas Eve and Other Stories", which the song gave them instant success.


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo is internationally renowned for its eclectic and diverse selection of over 50 annual festivals. The Sarajevo Film Festival was established in 1995 during the Bosnian War and has become the premier and largest film festival in Southeast Europe. It has been hosted at the National Theater, with screenings at the Open-air theater Metalac and the Bosnian Cultural Center, all in downtown Sarajevo. The MESS International Festival is an experimental theatre festival and the oldest living theatre festival in the Balkans. The annual Sarajevo Youth Film Festival showcases feature, animated and short films from around the world and is the premier student film festival in the Balkans. The Sarajevo Winter Festival, Jazz Fest Sarajevo and Sarajevo International Music Festival are well-known, as is the Baščaršija Nights festival, a month-long showcase of local culture, music, and dance.


title: Sarajevo

text: The first incarnation of the Sarajevo Film Festival was hosted in still-warring Sarajevo in 1995, and has now progressed into being the biggest and most significant festival in Southeast Europe. A talent campus is also held during the duration of the festival, with lecturers speaking on behalf of world cinematography and holding workshops for film students from across Southeast Europe.


title: Sarajevo

text: The Jazz Fest Sarajevo is the region's largest and most diverse of its kind. The festival takes place at the Bosnian Cultural Center (aka "Main Stage"), just down the street from the SFF, at the Sarajevo Youth Stage Theater (aka "Strange Fruits Stage"), at the Dom Vojske Federacije (aka "Solo Stage"), and at the CDA (aka "Groove Stage").


title: Sarajevo

text: Sarajevo hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics. Yugoslavia won one medal, a silver in men's giant slalom awarded to Jure Franko. Many of the Olympic facilities survived the war or were reconstructed, including the Zetra Olympic Hall and Asim Ferhatović Stadium. In an attempt to bring back some of Sarajevo's Olympic glory, the original Olympic luge and bobsled tracks are being repaired, due to the efforts of both the Olympic Committee of Bosnia and Herzegovina and local sports enthusiasts. After co-hosting the Southeast Europe Friendship games, Sarajevo was awarded the 2009 Special Olympic winter games, but cancelled these plans. The ice arena for the 1984 Olympics, Zetra Stadium, was used during the war as a temporary hospital and, later, for housing NATO troops of the IFOR.


title: Sarajevo

text: In 2011, Sarajevo was the host city of the 51st World Military Skiing Championship with over 350 participants from 23 different nations. This was the first international event of such standing since the 1984 Olympics.


title: Sarajevo

text: Football (soccer) is popular in Sarajevo; the city hosts "FK Sarajevo" and "FK Željezničar", which both compete in European and international cups and tournaments and have a very large trophy cabinet in the former Yugoslavia as well as independent Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other notable soccer clubs are "FK Olimpik", "SAŠK" and "Slavija".


title: Sarajevo

text: One of only three stadiums in Bosnia and Herzegovina that has the UEFA category 3 is the Grbavica Stadium, the home stadium of FK Željezničar.


title: Sarajevo

text: Another popular sport is basketball; the basketball club KK Bosna Royal won the European Championship in 1979 as well as many Yugoslav and Bosnian national championships, making it one of the greatest basketball clubs in the former Yugoslavia. The chess club, Bosna Sarajevo, has been a championship team since the 1980s and is the third-ranked chess club in Europe, having won four consecutive European championships in the nineties. Handball club RK Bosna also competes in the European Champions League and is considered one of the most well organised handball clubs in Southeast Europe with a very large fan base and excellent national, as well as international results.


title: Sarajevo

text: The popularity of tennis has been picking up in recent years. Since 2003, BH Telecom Indoors is an annual tennis tournament in Sarajevo.


title: Sarajevo

text: Since 2007, the Sarajevo Half Marathon has been organized every year in late September. "Giro di Sarajevo" is also a run in the city with over 2,200 cyclists taking part in 2015.


title: Sarajevo

text: In February 2019, Sarajevo and East Sarajevo hosted the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival (EYOWF).


title: Bourgeoisie

text: The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They are sometimes divided into a petty (), middle (), large (), upper (), and ancient () bourgeoisie and collectively designated as "the bourgeoisie".


title: Bourgeoisie

text: The bourgeoisie in its original sense is intimately linked to the existence of cities, recognized as such by their urban charters (e.g., municipal charters, town privileges, German town law), so there was no bourgeoisie apart from the citizenry of the cities. Rural peasants came under a different legal system.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: In Marxist philosophy, the bourgeoisie is the social class that came to own the means of production during modern industrialization and whose societal concerns are the value of property and the preservation of capital to ensure the perpetuation of their economic supremacy in society.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: The Modern French word ( or , ) derived from the Old French or ('town dweller'), which derived from ('market town'), from the Old Frankish ('town'); in other European languages, the etymologic derivations include the Middle English , the Middle Dutch , the German , the Modern English "burgess", the Spanish , the Portuguese , and the Polish , which occasionally is synonymous with the intelligentsia.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: In the 18th century, before the French Revolution (1789–1799), in the French Ancien Régime, the masculine and feminine terms "bourgeois" and "bourgeoise" identified the relatively rich men and women who were members of the urban and rural Third Estate – the common people of the French realm, who violently deposed the absolute monarchy of the Bourbon King Louis XVI (r. 1774–1791), his clergy, and his aristocrats in the French Revolution of 1789–1799. Hence, since the 19th century, the term "bourgeoisie" usually is politically and sociologically synonymous with the ruling upper class of a capitalist society. In English, the word "bourgeoisie", as a term referring to French history, refers to a social class oriented to economic materialism and hedonism, and to upholding the political and economic interests of the capitalist ruling-class.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: Historically, the medieval French word "bourgeois" denoted the inhabitants of the "bourgs" (walled market-towns), the craftsmen, artisans, merchants, and others, who constituted "the bourgeoisie". They were the socio-economic class between the peasants and the landlords, between the workers and the owners of the means of production. As the economic managers of the (raw) materials, the goods, and the services, and thus the capital (money) produced by the feudal economy, the term "bourgeoisie" evolved to also denote the middle class – the businessmen and businesswomen who accumulated, administered, and controlled the capital that made possible the development of the bourgs into cities.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: Contemporarily, the terms "bourgeoisie" and "bourgeois" (noun) identify the ruling class in capitalist societies, as a social stratum; while "bourgeois" (adjective / noun modifier) describes the "Weltanschauung" (worldview) of men and women whose way of thinking is socially and culturally determined by their economic materialism and philistinism, a social identity famously mocked in Molière's comedy "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme" (1670), which satirizes buying the trappings of a noble-birth identity as the means of climbing the social ladder. The 18th century saw a partial rehabilitation of bourgeois values in genres such as the "drame bourgeois" (bourgeois drama) and "bourgeois tragedy".


title: Bourgeoisie

text: In the late 20th century, the shortened term "bougie" or "boujee" (an intentional misspelling) became slang, particularly among African-Americans. The term refers to a person of lower or middle class doing pretentious activities or virtue signalling as an affectation of the upper-class.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: The bourgeoisie emerged as a historical and political phenomenon in the 11th century when the "bourgs" of Central and Western Europe developed into cities dedicated to commerce and crafts. This urban expansion was possible thanks to economic concentration due to the appearance of protective self-organisation into guilds. Guilds arose when individual businessmen (such as craftsmen, artisans and merchants) conflicted with their rent-seeking feudal landlords who demanded greater rents than previously agreed.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: In the event, by the end of the Middle Ages (c. AD 1500), under régimes of the early national monarchies of Western Europe, the bourgeoisie acted in self-interest, and politically supported the king or queen against legal and financial disorder caused by the greed of the feudal lords. In the late-16th and early 17th centuries, the bourgeoisies of England and the Netherlands had become the financial – thus political – forces that deposed the feudal order; economic power had vanquished military power in the realm of politics.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: According to the Marxist view of history, during the 17th and 18th centuries, the bourgeoisie were the politically progressive social class who supported the principles of constitutional government and of natural right, against the Law of Privilege and the claims of rule by divine right that the nobles and prelates had autonomously exercised during the feudal order.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: The English Civil War (1642–1651), the American War of Independence (1775–1783), and French Revolution (1789–1799) were partly motivated by the desire of the bourgeoisie to rid themselves of the feudal and royal encroachments on their personal liberty, commercial prospects, and the ownership of property. In the 19th century, the bourgeoisie propounded liberalism, and gained political rights, religious rights, and civil liberties for themselves and the lower social classes; thus the bourgeoisie was a progressive philosophic and political force in Western societies.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: After the Industrial Revolution (1750–1850), by the mid-19th century the great expansion of the bourgeoisie social class caused its stratification – by business activity and by economic function – into the "haute bourgeoisie" (bankers and industrialists) and the "petite bourgeoisie" (tradesmen and white-collar workers). Moreover, by the end of the 19th century, the capitalists (the original bourgeoisie) had ascended to the upper class, while the developments of technology and technical occupations allowed the rise of working-class men and women to the lower strata of the bourgeoisie; yet the social progress was incidental.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: According to Karl Marx, the bourgeois during the Middle Ages usually was a self-employed businessman – such as a merchant, banker, or entrepreneur – whose economic role in society was being the financial intermediary to the feudal landlord and the peasant who worked the fief, the land of the lord. Yet, by the 18th century, the time of the Industrial Revolution (1750–1850) and of industrial capitalism, the bourgeoisie had become the economic ruling class who owned the means of production (capital and land), and who controlled the means of coercion (armed forces and legal system, police forces and prison system).


title: Bourgeoisie

text: In such a society, the bourgeoisie's ownership of the means of production allowed them to employ and exploit the wage-earning working class (urban and rural), people whose only economic means is labour; and the bourgeois control of the means of coercion suppressed the sociopolitical challenges by the lower classes, and so preserved the economic status quo; workers remained workers, and employers remained employers.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: In the 19th century, Marx distinguished two types of bourgeois capitalist: (i) the functional capitalists, who are business administrators of the means of production; and (ii) rentier capitalists whose livelihoods derive either from the rent of property or from the interest-income produced by finance capital, or both. In the course of economic relations, the working class and the bourgeoisie continually engage in class struggle, where the capitalists exploit the workers, while the workers resist their economic exploitation, which occurs because the worker owns no means of production, and, to earn a living, seeks employment from the bourgeois capitalist; the worker produces goods and services that are property of the employer, who sells them for a price.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: Besides describing the social class who owns the means of production, the Marxist use of the term "bourgeois" also describes the consumerist style of life derived from the ownership of capital and real property. Marx acknowledged the bourgeois industriousness that created wealth, but criticised the moral hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie when they ignored the alleged origins of their wealth: the exploitation of the proletariat, the urban and rural workers. Further sense denotations of "bourgeois" describe ideological concepts such as "bourgeois freedom", which is thought to be opposed to substantive forms of freedom; "bourgeois independence"; "bourgeois personal individuality"; the "bourgeois family"; et cetera, all derived from owning capital and property (see "The Communist Manifesto", 1848).


title: Bourgeoisie

text: In English, the term "bourgeoisie" is often used to denote the middle classes. In fact, the French term encompasses both the upper and middle economic classes, a misunderstanding which has occurred in other languages as well. The bourgeoisie in France and many French-speaking countries consists of five evolving social layers: "petite bourgeoisie", "moyenne bourgeoisie", "grande bourgeoisie", "haute bourgeoisie" and "ancienne bourgeoisie".


title: Bourgeoisie

text: The "petite bourgeoisie" is the equivalent of the modern-day middle class, or refers to "a social class between the middle class and the lower class: the lower middle class".


title: Bourgeoisie

text: The "moyenne bourgeoisie" or middle bourgeoisie contains people who have solid incomes and assets, but not the aura of those who have become established at a higher level. They tend to belong to a family that has been bourgeois for three or more generations. Some members of this class may have relatives from similar backgrounds, or may even have aristocratic connections. The "moyenne bourgeoisie" is the equivalent of the British and American upper-middle classes.


title: Bourgeoisie

text: The "grande bourgeoisie" are families that have been bourgeois since the 19th century, or for at least four or five generations. Members of these families tend to marry with the aristocracy or make other advantageous marriages. This bourgeois family has acquired an established historical and cultural heritage over the decades. The names of these families are generally known in the city where they reside, and their ancestors have often contributed to the region's history. These families are respected and revered. They belong to the upper class, roughly equivalent to the British gentry. In the French-speaking countries, they are sometimes .


title: Bourgeoisie

text: In France, it is composed of bourgeois families that have existed since the French Revolution. They hold only honourable professions and have experienced many illustrious marriages in their family's history. They have rich cultural and historical heritages, and their financial means are more than secure.