Population, as the most important resource and element of socio-economic development,
forms a system of demographic characteristics that has a specific value in the geopolitical
evaluation of the geospace of the Republic of Srpska.
Also, specific historical circumstances and political-geographical processes, natural-
geographical and economic-geographical features are the basic factors of social
development and distribution of settlements in the geospace of the Republic of Srpska.
These factors conditioned the existing network of settlements, as well as their
development functions and characteristics.
In approaching the topic, we start from the premise that demographic processes and the
existing network of settlements are one of the basic factors and determinants of the
political-geographical and geopolitical position of the Republic of Srpska as an entity in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this context, we develop a thesis on the fundamental
importance of demographic factors and relevant settlement potentials as a quantitative-
qualitative category that ultimately determines contemporary geopolitical characteristics.
The subject of research in this paper are the demographic elements and the settlement
system of the Republic of Srpska, more precisely, the connection and interaction between
demographic and settlement particularities and their implication to the geopolitical
characteristics of the researched geospace.
The research methodology is based on the analysis of demographic processes, settlement
specifics and development functions, in accordance with scientifically accepted indicators
of individual and general regional development. In this context, we determine research
methods, both within the framework of standardized methods of analysis and synthesis,
and on the basis of methods immanent to geographical research: historical-geographical,
comparative, statistical, demographic, mathematical, cartographic and graphic.
Research results should meet a scientific and practical objective. More precisely,
scientific results would indicate demographic specifics and development problems, but
also offer models of administrative organization and management of geospace that could
be applied in different areas of social practice. The paper would improve geopolitical and
regional-geographical knowledge of the researched geospace, viewed through the prism
of contemporary demographic and political-geographical processes in Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the Western Balkans as a whole.
