Bosnia and Herzegovina Trivia
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58 free Bosnia and Herzegovina trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is where World War I began, where the 1984 Winter Olympics were held, and where the longest siege of a capital in modern history took place. It has a rotating three-member presidency, a currency still named after the Deutsche Mark, a 20-kilometre coastline with a single town, and a rebuilt Ottoman bridge that young men dive from for money. This quiz covers geography (Neum, Maglić, the Neretva), history (the medieval kingdom, Ottoman rule, Gavrilo Princip, Yugoslavia, the 1992-95 war and Dayton), the unusual political system (entities, the Brčko District, the High Representative), symbols (a flag full of stars, a Nobel laureate's bridge novel) and culture (ćevapi, coffee ritual, sevdalinka, Kusturica and Tanović). Questions run from easy to expert. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and other reference pages before publishing.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Bosnia and Herzegovina shares land borders with which three countries?
Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro
Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro are its only neighbours: Croatia wraps around the north, west and south, and Montenegro became a separate neighbour only in 2006, when it left its union with Serbia.
Q 02Bosnia and Herzegovina's coastline on the Adriatic is roughly how long?
20 km
The Adriatic coast is only about 20 km long, a single short stretch that splits Croatia's Dubrovnik region from the rest of Croatia.
Q 03Which is the only town on Bosnia and Herzegovina's Adriatic coast?
Neum
Neum is the only town on the coast, and its strip of shore cuts Croatia's Dubrovnik region off from the rest of Croatia, so in 2022 Croatia opened the Pelješac Bridge to bypass it.
Q 04Whose assassination in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 sparked World War I?
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand had survived a grenade thrown at his motorcade that morning; then his driver, never told of a route change, turned into a side street and stalled in front of Gavrilo Princip, who shot him and his wife.
Q 05Why was Gavrilo Princip, the 1914 Sarajevo assassin, spared the death penalty?
He was too young, at 19
He was too young, at 19: the law barred the death penalty for anyone under 20 on the day of the crime, so he got the maximum prison term and died of tuberculosis in Theresienstadt in 1918.
Q 06Which Ottoman-era bridge over the Miljacka stands beside the spot of the 1914 Sarajevo assassination?
Latin Bridge
The Latin Bridge stands beside the corner where Princip fired; Yugoslav authorities renamed it Princip's Bridge in his honour, and the old name returned after the Yugoslav wars.
Q 07Torvill and Dean skated to what for gold at Sarajevo's 1984 Olympics?
Boléro
Boléro could not be cut short enough for the time limit, so Torvill and Dean began on their knees: the clock started only when a skate blade touched the ice. All nine judges then gave them 6.0 for artistic impression.
Q 08Vučko, the mascot of the Sarajevo Olympics, was what kind of animal?
A wolf
Vučko was a wolf, drawn by Slovenian illustrator Jože Trobec and chosen by a public newspaper vote; his name comes from vuk, the local word for wolf.
Q 09The 1992-96 encirclement of Sarajevo holds what grim record?
Longest blockade of a capital in modern warfare
At 1,425 days it was the longest blockade of a capital in modern warfare, outlasting Leningrad's by more than a year, as Bosnian Serb forces dug into the surrounding hills shelled and sniped at the city below.
Q 10The wartime Sarajevo Tunnel, hand-dug in 1993, ran beneath what?
The airport runway
The Tunnel of Hope ran under the UN-controlled airport runway, linking besieged Dobrinja with Butmir on the free side; completed in mid-1993, it carried food, arms and people.
Q 11"Sarajevo Roses" scattered around the city are what?
Mortar-shell scars in concrete filled with red resin
Sarajevo Roses are mortar-shell scars in concrete filled with red resin, each one marking a spot where a shell killed people during the fighting of the 1990s.
Q 12The 1995 agreement that ended the Bosnian War was negotiated at an air force base in which US state?
Ohio
Ohio's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, outside Dayton, was picked to stop the delegations negotiating through the media; after three weeks shut in there, they initialled the accord, later signed formally in Paris.
Q 13Under the Dayton Agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina is split into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and what?
Q 21Bosnia and Herzegovina's currency, the KM, was pegged at par to which currency when introduced in 1998?
The Deutsche Mark
The convertible mark was pegged one-to-one to the Deutsche Mark under a currency board; when the euro replaced the German currency, the peg simply carried over at the old rate of 1.95583 KM to the euro.
Q 22Stari Most, the famous "Old Bridge" of Mostar, was destroyed in November 1993 by whom?
Croatian Defence Council (HVO) shelling
Croatian Defence Council (HVO) shelling brought the bridge down on 9 November 1993, after more than four centuries; divers raised original stones from the river for the rebuilding, and it reopened in 2004.
Q 23Mostar's Old Bridge crosses which river?
Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska holds 49% of the country and the Federation 51%; the line between them mostly follows the front lines where the armies stood when the fighting stopped in 1995.
Q 14Which court ruled in 2009 that Bosnia's presidency rules discriminate against Jews and Roma?
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights backed Dervo Sejdić, who is Roma, and Jakob Finci, who is Jewish: both were barred from standing because the presidency's seats are reserved for a Bosniak, a Croat and a Serb.
Q 15Which internationally appointed official can impose laws and sack officials in Bosnia under the 'Bonn Powers'?
The High Representative
The High Representative, an office created by the Dayton Agreement, gained the Bonn Powers in December 1997; holders have since sacked a sitting member of the country's presidency twice, in 2001 and in 2005.
Q 16Which north-eastern town is a self-governing district belonging to both entities but run by neither?
Brčko
Brčko was carved out by international arbitrators in March 1999 and placed under an American supervisor; the district belongs to both entities and is governed by neither.
Q 17Which city is the administrative centre and largest city of the Serb-majority entity?
Banja Luka
Banja Luka houses the entity's government and parliament, which makes it the capital in practice, although the entity's own constitution names Sarajevo as its capital.
Q 18At which town were more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys killed in July 1995?
Srebrenica
Srebrenica had been declared a UN safe area in 1993, yet its lightly armed Dutch battalion could not stop the Bosnian Serb army from overrunning the enclave and killing more than 8,000 men and boys.
Q 19Which Bosnian Serb general commanded the forces responsible for the July 1995 massacre?
Ratko Mladić
Ratko Mladić, commander of the Bosnian Serb army, was convicted of genocide by the UN tribunal in 2017; Radovan Karadžić, the political leader, was convicted in 2016.
Q 20What do the points of the yellow triangle on Bosnia and Herzegovina's flag represent?
Its three constituent peoples
Its three constituent peoples, Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, get a point each, and the triangle roughly traces the country's outline; the stars are cut off at top and bottom to suggest a row that never ends.
Neretva
The Neretva flows beneath the Old Bridge, where local divers leap from the hump-backed span into the cold water; Mostar takes its name from the mostari, the keepers who guarded the bridge.
Q 24Which Bosnian-born author of The Bridge on the Drina won the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature?
Ivo Andrić
Ivo Andrić, born near Travnik in 1892, wrote The Bridge on the Drina while living quietly in occupied Belgrade during World War II and received the Nobel Prize in 1961.
Q 25Which Sarajevo-born director won the Palme d'Or twice, including for Underground?
Emir Kusturica
Emir Kusturica won the Palme d'Or for When Father Was Away on Business in 1985 and for Underground in 1995; he later built a wooden village, Drvengrad, in Serbia as a film set and made it his home.
Q 26Danis Tanović's 2001 film No Man's Land won Bosnia and Herzegovina its first what?
Academy Award
No Man's Land won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002, beating France's Amélie; the dark comedy about enemy soldiers stuck in one trench also took the Golden Globe.
Q 27Which annual Sarajevo event, launched in 1995 while the city was still surrounded, awards the Heart of Sarajevo?
A film festival
A film festival: the Obala Art Centre launched the Sarajevo Film Festival near the end of the four-year siege, to help rebuild civil society and keep the city's cosmopolitan spirit alive.
Q 28Ćevapi, the grilled minced-meat national dish, are traditionally served in what?
A flatbread called somun or lepinja
A flatbread called somun or lepinja holds the ćevapi, along with raw onion and often kajmak; the dish is an Ottoman legacy, and even its name comes from the Turkish kebap.
Q 29Bosnian coffee is traditionally brewed and served in what long-handled pot?
A džezva
A džezva is the long-handled pot the coffee is boiled in and carried to the table; unlike the Turkish method, the water is boiled first and a little set aside, then poured back in once the coffee is added.
Q 30Sarajevo's old bazaar, founded in the 15th century, is called what?
Baščaršija
Baščaršija, the Ottoman bazaar laid out by Isa-beg Ishaković, is the heart of old Sarajevo; legend says anyone who drinks from its wooden Sebilj fountain will one day return to the city.