From: http://www.vladars.net/en/srpska/geografija.html
:
«Geography of Republic of Srpska
The size, shape and borders of
the Republic of Srpska
The frontiers of the Republic of Srpska have been
defined by the internationally recognized border with Yugoslavia and the
Republic of Croatia and the inter-entity boundary with the Federation of Bosnia
and Herzegovina. Both these lines were established with no regard to basic
principles of delineation between peoples (ethnic, historical,
natural-geographic, functional-economic, military-strategic).
Considering
its size the Republic of Srpska has unproportionally long and irregular borders.
They are very elongated and broken, building narrow belts of land in some places
(the so called "pockets") which link the Serbian areas. The narrowest and the most sensitive belt is the one round
the town of Brcko, the width of which is only 5 km. The total
length of the borders of the Republic of Srpska is 2,170 km, the inter-entity
border accounting for 1,080 km. If the territory of the Republic of Srpska were
in the shape of a circle, the total length of its borders would be only 561
km.
This means that the coefficient of the border indentation is 3.6,
which is rare in the world and could only be
compared to Chile.
The territory of the Republic of
Srpska is atypical in form. Its northern part is elongated in the west-east
direction and its eastern part in the north-south direction. Such an unusual
shape is an aggravating circumstance for internal communication and economic
integration of distant western and southern parts of the Republic, which gives
rise to a problem of its wholeness.»
See also http://www.balkans.eu.org/rep_srpska.php3 for a map.
Jan