In the past centuries, European sources have attributed arms to Bosnia that were close or full analogue to this depiction.

The House of Kotromanić reigned until 1463 when the Ottomans conquered the region, ceasing then the use of the royal coat of arms in Bosnia.

The heraldic achievement of Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić served as inspiration, who was a fifteenth-century nobleman that ruled over the region as Grand Duke of Bosnia and Herzeg of Split.

In the nineteenth century, the nationalist movement that had risen against both the former Ottoman rule and contemporary Austro-Hungarian occupation temporarily revived the arms from the Fojnica armorial.

The factory chimneys show the industry of several important Bosnian, then Yugoslav, towns and their vital influence towards the economy.

All of the Yugoslav republics had similar emblems, but Bosnia and Herzegovina was the only that did not portray nationalistic symbols, representing its multiethnic composition.

At the end of the war, there came uproar from the Bosnian Serbs arguing that the coat of arms solely represented Bosniaks.

In early 1998, a commission for the flag change was created and the same year the current coat of arms was adopted in order to help alleviate the tensions among the country's various ethnicities.