In Serbian, many names of countries are formed with the -sk- suffix (e.g. Bugarska ‘Bulgaria’, Danska ‘Denmark’, Finska ‘Finland’, Hrvatska ‘Croatia’, Irska ‘Ireland’, Turska ‘Turkey’).

According to Glas Srpske, a Banja Luka daily, the modern entity's name was created by its first minister of culture, Ljubomir Zuković.

Specifically, in 1976, near the modern-day town of Stolac in the then relatively hospitable Neretva basin, archaeological artifacts in the form of cave engravings in Badanj and deer bones in the area were discovered to show hunter-gatherer activity from as far back as 14,000–10,000 BC.

Remains of these mounds can be found in northwestern Bosnia near Prijedor, testament to not only denser settlement in the northern core of today's Republika Srpska but also Bronze Age relics.

[20] With the influx of the Iron Age, the Glasinac culture, developing near Sokolac in eastern Republika Srpska, was one of the most important of the country's long-standing Indo-European inhabitants, the Illyrians.

Christianity spread to the region relatively late at least partially due to the countryside's mountainous nature and its lack of large settlements.

With the loosening of Roman grip on the region came the Migration Period which, given Republika Srpska's position in southeastern Europe, involved a wide variety of peoples.

Years earlier, the same Grand Vizier was born into an Orthodox family in a small town in Bosnia and taken from his parents as a child for upbringing as a janissary.

[27] With the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, carried out by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Yugoslavist Mlada Bosna, World War I broke out in 1914.

Following the war, the territory of modern-day Republika Srpska was incorporated into the Vrbas, Drina, and Zeta banovinas of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, renamed Yugoslavia in 1929.

Around 300,000 Serbs are estimated to have died under the Ustashe regime as a result of their genocide campaign;[28] a slew of massacres, as well as the use of a variety of concentration and extermination camps, took place in Republika Srpska during the war.

[36] A December 1941 directive, attributed to Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović, explicitly ordered the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats from Sandžak and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ljubija mine and companies like Agrokomerc played a vital role in much of the economic development of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[43] On 9 January 1992, the assembly proclaimed the Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Republika srpskoga naroda Bosne i Hercegovine), declaring it part of Yugoslavia.

[52] The war was ended by the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, on 21 November and formally signed in Paris on 14 December 1995.

Annex 4 of the Agreement is the current Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, recognising Republika Srpska as one of its two main political-territorial divisions and defining the governmental functions and powers of the two entities.

The International Crisis Group reported in 2002 that in some parts of Republika Srpska a non-Serb returnee is ten times more likely to be the victim of violent crime than a local Serb.

[61] The Helsinki Commission, in a 2001 statement on 'Tolerance and Non-Discrimination', pointed at violence against non-Serbs, stating that in the cities of Banja Luka[62] and Trebinje,[63] mobs attacked people who sought to lay foundations for new mosques.

[64] Organisations such as the Society for Threatened Peoples, reporting to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2008, have made claims of discrimination against non-Serb refugees in Republika Srpska, particularly areas with high unemployment in the Drina Valley such as Srebrenica, Bratunac, Višegrad, and Foča.

[67] Situated in Southeast Europe, Republika Srpska is located on the Balkan Peninsula, with its northern extents reaching into the Pannonian Basin.

Within these two macroregions exist smaller geographical regions, from the forested hills of Bosanska Krajina in the northwest to the fertile plains of Semberija in the northeast.

Elevation varies greatly, with Maglić, a peak in the Dinaric Alps near Montenegro, reaching 2,386 metres (7,828 ft), and parts nearer the Adriatic going down to sea level.

[68] Other major mountains in Republika Srpska include Volujak, Zelengora, Lelija, Lebršnik, Crvanj, Orjen, Klekovača, Vitorog, Kozara, Romanija, Treskavica and Trebević.

[83] Hospitals specialised for physical medicine and rehabilitation are "Mlječanica" in Kozarska Dubica and Institute "Dr Miroslav Zotović" in Banja Luka.

Freedom of religion is a right defined by the Constitution of Republika Srpska, which provides for legal equality of all people, irrespective of religious belief.

Popular mountains include: Zelengora, Treskavica, Jahorina, Romanija, as well as Grmeč, Kozara, Ozren and many others, with rich flora and hunting grounds.

[106][107] Andrićgrad is a tourist complex inspired by the works of Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić, located on Drina near Višegrad.

[108] It is made of stone with around fifty object, including a local theatre, cinema, art gallery, church, Andrić's institute, hotels and various shops.

While European Union representatives were not present at the ceremony, top Republika Srpska officials attended the event, saying it would advance their economic, political and cultural relations with the EU.

Republika Srpska maintains official offices in Belgrade, Moscow, Stuttgart, Jerusalem, Thessaloniki, Washington D.C., Brussels, and Vienna.