Cantons of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Cantons

The cantons of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina were created by the Law on Federal Units (Cantons) of 1996, which was based on the Bosniak-Croat Washington Agreement. The cantons consist of municipalities. A canton has its own government headed by the Prime minister. The Prime minister has his own cabinet, and is assisted in his duties by various cantonal ministries, agencies, and cantonal or county services. Five of the cantons (Una-Sana, Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj, Bosnian Podrinje, and Sarajevo) have a Bosniak majority, three (Posavina, West Herzegovina and Canton 10) have Bosnian Croat majority, while two of them (Central Bosnia and Herzegovina-Neretva) are 'ethnically mixed', meaning there are special legislative procedures for the protection of the political interests of the constituent ethnic groups. The most populous canton is Tuzla Canton while Canton 10 is the largest by size.

The term županija has been declared unconstitutional, but is still widely used by Bosnian Croat officials and in cantonal constitutions. The Croatian language version of the Constitution of the Federation, however, uses the constitutional term kanton.

Possible reorganization

There are a number of propositions for the reorganization of the Federation, ranging from decreasing the number of cantons, establishing new federal units on the state level, to the exchange of jurisdiction between the cantons and the Federation. However, this question requires a high level of political agreement, especially between the Bosniak and Croat political parties, since it would necessarily include changing the federal constitution. For a constitutional law to pass, it has to obtain the support of the majority of the representatives and delegates in both chambers of the Federal parliament, including the majority of Croat and Bosniak delegates in the House of Peoples.