BANJALUKA (Banialuka), the capital of a district of the same name in Bosnia, Yugoslavia. Pop. (1931) 22,177. It lies on the river Vrbas at the head of a defile, at the military railway terminus for Prejedor. A postal motor connects the town with Jajce, but it is not yet (1928) linked up with the Yugoslav rail ways. The citadel and barracks, with the 16th century Ferhadiya Jamia (largest and most beautiful of the 4o mosques in the town) stand between the river and a small tributary. There is a Roman Catholic and also an Orthodox bishop. The Roman baths are in ruins, except one massive domed building, dating from the 6th century and still in use, although modern baths are also open, for the development of the hot springs. Other buildings are the Franciscan and Trappist monasteries, technical school, military academy, and Turkish Bazaar. Anthracite, iron, silver and other minerals are found in the adjoining hills : and the city possesses a Government tobacco factory, a brewery, gunpowder mills, a model farm, and many corn mills, worked by the two rapid rivers, the best wheat in Yugoslavia being grown here. There is an important annual stock and produce fair, at which horse racing by civil and military is a popular feature.
Banjaluka is probably the Roman fort, Castra of the Tabula Peutingeriana, on the river Urbanus and the road from Salona on the Adriatic to Servitium in Pannonia. Its later name, "Baths of St. Luke," is unexplained. In the 15th century the fall of Jajce, a rival stronghold, 42m. south, led to the rapid rise of Banjaluka, thenceforward the scene of many encounters between Austrians and Turks, notably in 15 2 7, 1688 and 1737. It had great import ance in the last half of the i8th century. In 1831 Hussein Aga Borberli, the "Dragon of Bosnia," set forth from Banjaluka on his holy war against the Sultan Mahmud II. (See BosNIA.)