Prijedor

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Приједор
Prijedor
Coat of arms
Latitude	44.98°N
Longitude	16.71°E
Mayor	Marko Pavic
Surface (km²)	?
Population (2006)	65.000 city 195.000 municipaliy	Time zone (UTC)	UTC+1 Central European Time
Prijedor }}

Prijedor (Serbian Cyrillic: Приједор) is a city and municipality in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, located on the Sana river, between Novi Grad and Banja Luka. It is administratively part of the Republika Srpska entity.

Contents

1 Geography
2 History
3 Demographics
4 External Links

Geography

Prijedor municipality sits in western part of the Republika Srpska on the banks of the Sana river and Gomjenica and on hills of Kozara mountain. The area of the municipality is 833 km². The town lies on 44°N and 16°W from Greenwhich, at altitude of 135 m. Prijedor is 110 km away from Zagreb and 45 km from Banja Luka. 2 km outside the town, to the northeast, the terrain ascends in waves and by degrees becomes a mountain range of Kozara, famous from the peoples' mutinies in the previous centuries and battle against fascism in the World War II. The level country in Prijedor lays is alluvial terrain created by the Sana river and its tributaries on the south western hillsides of the Kozara mountain. The structure of this level country depends upon the geologic composition of the ground through which run brooks and tributaries of the Sana river.

The town was developed on Svinjarica island separated from the Sana river and Berek. There are remains of the Roman and Illyrian civilisations in these regions.

History

Prijedor has been first mentioned in historical documents as a ground fortress, in letters of Count Adam Batschani during the so-called Viennese war from 1683 till 1699. However, many things refer to the town's existence since ancient times and the ancient Roman presence in this region. In Ljubija were found many monuments from the Roman age as evidence of the iron production. In Zecovi there is Illyrian necropolis from the iron age. A legend says that the river Sana had been named by the Romans. In the iron mine, used for production of weapons for the Roman legions, from Prijedor iron mine placers was melted in large smeltings—works of Salonica, Siscia and Sirmium.

Soon Prijedor has become a significant trade handcraft centre, thanks to the Roman roads, navigability of the Sana river and the first railway in the former Bosnia and Herzegovina which was built in 1873 during the time of Baron Hirsch. A century after, the town had burnt in a great fire which is why the Austro-Hungarian authorities had made the first urban plan in 1901.

Among important monuments there is a great monument on Mrakovica, the work of academic artist Dušan Džamonja, another evidence of traditional freedom-loving of the people in this region.

During Bosnian war the town of Omarska near Prijedor housed the infamous Omarska camp established by Serb authorities for Bosniak and Croat population.

Demographics

According to the data from the 1910 Austro-Hungarian population census the Prijedor district had a 59.08% Orthodox Serb majority. According to the latest data, there are over 194,096 inhabitants of which 48% belong to the urban population while 52% to the rural population.

The population of non-Serbs has declined significantly since 1991, while the number of Serbs increased dramatically. This was caused by the ethnic cleansing of non-Serb (Bosniak and Croat) population by the Serb authorities.

At the moment around 25,000 Serb refugees and displaced persons live in the municipality^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}.

According to data from the 1991 census, the municipality of Prijedor had 112,470 inhabitants: 49,454 Bosniaks (44%), 47,745 Serbs (42.4%), 6,371 Yugoslavs (5.66%), 6,300 Croats (5.64%) and 2,600 others (2.3%). The town of Prijedor itself had a population of 26,104, including 12,048 Serbs (46.15%), 7,730 Bosniaks (29.61%), 3,854 Yugoslavs (14.76%), 1,369 Croats (5.24%), 1,103 others (4.23%). After Banja Luka, Prijedor is second largest city in the Republika Srpska.

External Links

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