Banja Luka

Banja Luka is placed on both sides of river Vrbas, on the place where river leaves its cliffs, narrows and canyons, and enters lowland toward its confluence to river Sava. Vrbas flows through the middle of the city, and has 3 affluents in the city area: Suturlia, Crkvena and Vrbanja. The central part of the city lies at an altitude of 163 m, surrounded by Tertiary hills. Surrounding of Banja Luka has a rich variety of forest wildlife, and river fish, which contributed to the development of hunting and fishing.

The climate in Banja Luka is moderate continental with influence from Pannonian zone. Average annual temperature is 10.7 °C, in January 0.8 °C and in July 21.3 °C.

Banja Luka has about 250,000 inhabitants and is the largest city of the Republic of Srpska. It is also second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In today’s political-territorial organization of Republic of Srpska, city of Banja Luka (former municipality) is the largest political and territorial unit with 1239 km2. It is political, administrative, financial, university and cultural center of Republic of Srpska.

Banja Luka carries the title of green city because of large number of parks and alleys, and it is also called city of youth, sports and beautiful girls.

Culture

Thanks to its long and valuable history of the city of Banja Luka has a very rich and diverse cultural heritage. There are several museums in the city, such as Museum of Bosnian Krajina, Ethnographic museum (founded in 1930) and Museum of modern arts of Republic of Srpska.

The cultural offer in city is two theatres with valuable tradition: The National and Children’s theatre, as well as several artistic associations. Most famous artistic associations are: „Veselin Maslesa“, „Pelagic“ and „Cajavec“

City library, which was founded on April 26th 1936, is continuing library tradition of previous city and national libraries. One of them was founded in 1866 by great educator Vaso Pelagic, which eventually gets important role in academic community and general public. In first thirty years of its work, library collected around 92.000 books and extended its business by forming reading room and children’s department in 1950s. The library today has around 200.000 books, publications and periodicals. During the 1980s, it becomes the member of University of Banja Luka and today it is called National and University library.

One of the important cultural sites in the city is „Banski dvor“ (Halls of the Ban), which is a cultural centre today. It has been built between 1929. and 1932. as a residential building for Ban of Vrbas Banovina, and for that purpose, it was used until 1941. After the Second World War, the building was used as governing centre, and after 1955. it becomes cultural centre. As cultural centre, it has a representative concert hall, gallery, state television, and a restaurant.

Near Banski dvor there is a walking promenade called “Parkic”, as well as beautiful “Gospodska” street, that hold the charm of past times.
In down town, on the river Vrbas, there is “Kastel”, well preserved roman military fort (castra), where roman military settlement was placed. “Kastel” is well known city attraction, where various music concerts are held during the summer, which gives the city a specific charm.

A large number of cultural and sports events are held in Banja Luka during the whole year, and among them, the most famous are “Summer on Vrbas”, “Kocicev zbor” (Kocic gathering), “ Banja Luka Summer”, “Neofest”, “Kratkofil” etc.

Banja Luka has been, so far, host to many state and international competitions, and in May 2009. A World rafting championship was held in the city.

Sport

When it comes to sports in Banja Luka, first to be mentioned are handball players, who hold the title of European champions in handball. Remarkable successes in sport competitions were made also by boxers, archers, chess players, parachutists, football players, cyclists, kayakers, basketball players and other athletes who gave to their city 12 medals from Olympic games (8 gold), 15 medals from world championships, 6 from European championships, 4 from Universiades, 11 from Mediterranean games and 39 from Balkan championships, one club championship of Europe (handball club Borac), winner of Central European football cup (football club Borac), as well as numerous titles of champion in former Yugoslavia in both team and individual sports.