De Administrando Imperio describes a small Serbian župa of Bosona (Greek: χωρίον Βόσονα) that was located around the river Bosna in the modern-day fields of Sarajevo and of Visoko.

[6] The Ottoman Empire initially expanded into Bosnia and Herzegovina through a territory called the Bosansko Krajište.

The first Ottoman administration called Eyalet of Bosnia was finally formed in 1527, after long armed resistance to the north and to the west by Counts Franjo and Ivaniš Berislavić of the noble house of Berislavići Grabarski.

Eventually, following the Great Turkish War, in the 18th century the Eyalet came to encompass the area largely matching that of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The area acquired the name of "Bosnia and Herzegovina" in 1853 as a result of a twist in political events following his death.

By the end of the Ottoman rule (1878), regional Bosnianhood became a distinctive mark of local identity, that transcended traditional ethnic and religious distinctions within the general population of Bosnia, and the same notion of regional Bosniandom was preserved throughout the periods of Austro-Hungarian (1878–1918) and Yugoslav (1918–1992) rule.