Bosnia’s short coastline

Even for the Balkans, a region with more than its fair share of crazy national borders, it’s an oddity—a twelve-mile stretch of Bosnia on the Adriatic coast separating Croatia’s top tourist destination, Dubrovnik, from the rest of the country.

As with most territorial issues in the Balkans, Bosnia’s short coastline is a quirk of history, the outcome of conflicts between the Ottoman, Habsburg and Venetian empires, and Venice’s main trading rival, the Republic of Dubrovnik.

Bosnia is hardly a maritime nation. It has no navy or merchant fleet. But since it gained independence in 1995, it has enticed travelers on the coast road to Dubrovnik to stop, shop, eat and sleep at its only port, Neum, population 3,000.

That commercial advantage ended in 2023, when Croatia completed construction of the 1.5-mile Pelješac Bridge. It spans the channel from the mainland to the Pelješac peninsula, where new access roads and tunnels connect with the Dubrovnik road. It adds a few miles to the trip, but travelers avoid two border crossings.