SARAJEVO (sah-rah'ya-vo), capital of Bosnia, Yugoslavia. Pop. (1931) 78,182, chiefly Serbo-Croatians. It lies in a fine situation in a valley 1,800 ft. above sea-level.
Though it is still half Oriental, and wholly beautiful with its hundred mosques, its ancient Turkish bazaar, picturesque wooden houses, and cypress groves, it was largely rebuilt after western fashion in 1878. Sarajevo is the seat of a Roman Catho lic bishop, an Orthodox metropolitan,- the highest Moslem eccle siastical authority, and the supreme court. Notable in the town are the Begava Djamia (Diamia), or mosque of Husref Bey, founded in 1465, and among the three most beautiful mosques in Europe, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox cathedrals, the hos pitals, the town hall, the museum, the State-maintained Scheriat school for Moslem law students ; a gymnasium ; secondary schools; a technical institute and a teachers' training college. Near the pic turesque bazaar is the oldest church in Bosnia, containing a 14th century picture of the Virgin, venerated throughout the kingdom. The industries include potteries, silk, and flour mills, a sugar beet factory, timber, and, under State control, a brewery, tobacco, embroidery and carpet factories, a model farm, a bee keepers' association, a stud farm and a race course. Weaving on hand looms is an important industry.
Founded in 1262 by the Hungarian general Cotroman, under the name of Bosnavar or Vrhbosna, Sarajevo was enlarged two centuries later, and takes its name from the palace (Turkish, serai) which he founded. During the wars between Turkey and
Austria, its ownership was often contested ; and it fell before King Matthias I. of Hungary in 1480, and before Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1697. Destructive fires laid it waste in 1480, 1656, 1687 and 1789. It was chosen as the seat of Turkish gov ernment in 185o instead of Travnik. In 1878 it became the seat of the Austro-Hungarian administration of Bosnia-Hercegovina and subsequently of the Bosnian Diet. Under Austrian rule it was largely modernized, but the schools now established also served as a focus of Serb nationalist feeling. Students at Sarajevo perpetrated the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand (q.v.) which led to the World War. As the Archduke motored from manoeuvres to a gala lunch in the city a bomb was thrown un successfully in the suburbs. The fatal shots were fired as the Archduke's car reversed out of a narrow street leading off the quays, opposite the chief bridge.
In Nov. 1918 the Diet at Sarajevo proclaimed union with Yugoslavia. Sarajevo now became capital of a province of Yugo slavia, but its insufficient communications with Belgrade were at first unfavourable to its growth.