A visitor from Bosnia and Herzegovina -- is that two for one?

Got another new visitor -- Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina, sometimes just Bosnia. I guess the "and" thing is kind of like "Turks and Caicos." Not sure why they do it, if they used to be separate countries or what. Never been to either one -- or, any of the four, depending on what the "and" means. Anyway, Wikipedia  tells us that it is abbreviated BiH, so I don't have to type out all that stuff every time I refer to BiH.

Wikipedia also tells us that BiH used to be part of the Ottoman Empire, used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and used to be part of Yugoslavia, both the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before World War II and the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia after World War II. When communism started collapsing in Eastern Europe in 1989, Yugoslavia also broke up and BiH voted for independence, leading to the Bosnian war with Serbia. Shit got ugly, lots of folks got killed, and eventually BiH emerged as independent.

The capital is Sarajevo, site of the 1984 Winter Olympics. Population is about 3.7 million, with about 500,000 inthe Sarajevo metro area. The nation is bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east and Montenegro to the southeast. The country has a 12-mile coastline on the Adriatic Sea centered on the city of Neum. I hear it's nice. Apparently the country is a nice place to visit. See?

Pretty.

Because this is not a geography blog, except when I say it is, I won't go into further detail. Nonetheless, Welcome and Eff You, Bosnia and Herzegovina.