Mostar

Mostar (mô`stär), city (1991 pop. 75,613), in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the Neretva River. Its name means "Old Bridge," referring to the 16th-century stone bridge built by Ottoman sultan Sulayman the Magnificent, which, along with numerous Turkish mosques and old houses, was destroyed in the 1993–94 siege of the city during the Bosnian civil war; the bridge was rebuilt in 2004. Prior to the war, Mostar had been the chief city of Herzegovina. It produced tobacco, wine, and aluminum products, with bauxite mines and a hydroelectric plant operating nearby.

Known in 1442, Mostar became (16th cent.) the chief Turkish administrative and commercial center in Herzegovina. It passed to Austria in 1878 and to Yugoslavia in 1918. In 1993, as Bosnia and Herzegovina was torn by civil war after declaring independence from Yugoslavia, Croats and Muslims began a nine-month-long struggle for control of Mostar. Bosnian Croats relentlessly bombarded the eastern, Muslim section of the city, reducing most of it to ruins. Since a cease-fire in 1994, attempts to restore civic unity to Mostar have proceeded fitfully.

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Mostar 

a city in Yugoslavia, located in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Population, 48,000 (1971). Located in a picturesque part of the Neretva River valley. Local industries include textiles, tobacco, and food; bauxite is mined in the region. Founded in the 15th century, Mostar was a major center in the struggle against the Turkish yoke from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and then against Austro-Hungarian occupation from the late 19th century until 1918.