CONCEPT AND IMPORTANCE OF STATISTICAL REGIONS ON THE EXAMPLE OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Abstract

Bosnia and Herzegovina is the first country in Europe for unemployment and percentage of inhabitants who do not live in the country where they were born. These data require a very serious approach with a wide range of reasons for these phenomena especially from geographical point of view. Thus, it is necessary to critically investigate its regional structure. The reason for this is knowledge of the real economic and geographical differences that exist between individual regions. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to abandon the concept of the existing physiognomic or economic-geographic regions, since they do not reflect the real dynamics of major social changes and do not allow for the perspective of the future economic and geographical development of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The starting hypothesis of this paper is based on the creation of statistical regions, which will be separated based on the NUTS methodology for the level of political-administrative units, reflecting its constitutional structure. Implementation of statistical regions will soon be set up as an imperative for BiH on the road to EU accession, as already done by other countries.