Zenica
Zenica is an industrial city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, located about 70 km north from Sarajevo. It is situated on the Bosna river and surrounded by mountains and hills.
History
It is said people have lived in Zenica almost from the beginning of time. Ruins of an old Roman town can still be seen in city Bistum novum, and during the middle ages, part of the city called Bilino Polje was very important. Here, the famous sabor of 1203 occured, whern bosnian Ban Kulin (1163-1204), famous in Bosnian folk stories, accepted the Catholic religion. Bilino Polje was still important untill the Ottoman invasion of Bosnia.
Few things can be said about Zenica during Ottoman period, but most important thing would be that Zenica was merely a kasaba (village) during the Ottoman occupation. There was never an important mosque in Zenica, unlike the neighboring town Travnik, which was once a center of Bosnian viziers. Zenica, continued to sleep for over 400 years of that period until Austria-Hungary conquered it in 1878.
A few years after the conquest, the Austrians started to build a steel factory in town. The town grew rapidly with the new steel factory and booming economy. By the end of Austrian rule it was a small trown still, just over 10 000, but never the less it began to develop into the major town that it would later become
The true boom of Zenica started after the partisans liberated the small town in 1945 and began to develop more the steel industry. During those years new buildings were constructed there and the town grew rapdily, spreading to encompass Bilino Polje, Klopce, and Radakovo, all villages during the Ottoman period.
In 1948 the town had 12,000 people, but by 1961 the town grew to over 30 000. in 1981 the town had over 63,000 people, and in the last census in 1991 Zenica was a city of some 96,027 people. The town's population grew almost sixth fold in the last 50 years.
