The old bazaar
Sarajevo grew up around Baščaršija, the old bazaar. Isa-beg Isaković, the Ottoman governor who founded the city, built an inn and the first shops here around 1462.
In the 16th century Gazi Husrev-beg added the mosque that still bears his name, built around 1530, along with a covered market and other buildings that still stand.
The Latin Bridge and 1914
The Miljacka River runs through the center, crossed by a string of bridges. The best known is the Latin Bridge, an Ottoman stone bridge from 1798.
On June 28, 1914, near the bridge, Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie. The assassination helped trigger the First World War.
The Jerusalem of Europe
For centuries, mosques, churches and synagogues have stood within a few streets of each other here, which earned Sarajevo the nickname the Jerusalem of Europe.
The city hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics in the mountains around it. During the siege of the 1990s, shells scarred its streets, and some of those scars were later filled with red resin. They are known as Sarajevo Roses.
