Republika Srpska

Republika Srpska (, , lit. "Serb Republic"); also known as Republic of Srpska) is one of the two entities composing Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the north and east of the country. Its largest city and administrative centre is Banja Luka, lying on the Vrbas river, and with a population of about 138,963 people. Republika Srpska was formed in 1992 at the outset of the Bosnian War with the stated intent to safeguard the interests of the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The war saw the expulsion of the vast majority of Croats and Bosniaks from the territory claimed by Republika Srpska and an inflow of Serbs expelled from Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Following the Dayton Agreement of 1995, Republika Srpska was recognised as an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today most of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Serb population lives in Republika Srpska. Republika Srpska is a parliamentary-style government, with the National Assembly holding legislative power within the entity. Republika Srpska is relatively centralised, although it is split into 64 municipalities called opštine. The legislature holds 83 seats, and the current session is the tenth since its founding. Name In the name , is a noun derived from the ethnonym of the Serbs with a different suffix than ‘Serbia’. In Serbian, many names of countries are formed with the suffix (e.g. ‘Bulgaria’, ‘Denmark’, ‘Finland’, ‘Croatia’, ‘Ireland’, ‘Turkey’). An analogous English formation would be Serbland (which has been used sporadically). Since the suffix originally forms adjectives and the country names of this type are nominalisations, has often been misunderstood to mean ‘Serb Republic’. However, the noun is often used without as a stand-alone noun in Serbian, e.g. in the names of the political party United Srpska , of the newspaper , of the postal service or of the entity's writers’ association . As a proper noun, is always capitalised in Serbian, whereas postponed adjectives in names and titles are not (cf. the cultural organisation , with a small s in the adjective ‘Serbian’). The government uses the name “Republic of Srpska” in English.