Zemlja (plural: zemlje, anglicized: zemljas; Latin: terra; English: Land), was a term used in the Balkans during much of the Middle Ages as a unit in political-territorial state division, based on feudal social hierarchy, local administrative control and the feudal distribution of land.
It was the largest unit of administration, which constituted a feudal state among South Slavic peoples of the Balkans at the time, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro (Zeta) and Serbia.
The same term is known to be used among other Slavic nations of medieval Europe, namely Poles and Russians, who called it Zemlya, Ziemlia, or Ziemia, and although it has a similar meaning and significance it is not the same.
To some extent this division was probably influenced by earlier Byzantine administration, and additionally by specific socio-economic relations between the Slavic migrating populations and the indigenous people namely Romanized Illyrians, since the Middle Ages called Vlach.
It is significant that as early as the 10th century, the chieftains in the territories neighboring to Bosnia had Byzantine official titles, and that in the zemlja-župa-village scheme, a military organization of the tithe system could be observed.
This division can be defined as the transitional socio-economic system or military democracy, as well as the administrative and political organization of the borderlands of the Byzantine Empire.
[2] Historians, although cautiously, point out the parallelism between zemljas and the so-called sclavinias on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, but less cautiously to the fact that appearance of sclavinias and early feudal zemljas largely coincides with the administrative division of the late Roman Empire.
It was organized as zemlja (horion) in the 10th century, and it has always preserved a certain individuality within the later larger and more developed medieval Bosnian state.
However, the political organization of this zemlja was already so fragmented at the time that it did not appear in the title of rulers or in any other form during the entire period of the Bosnian state nor later.
The administrative seat of this zemlja was Srebrenik, which also served as residence for its rulers for entire period of existence of the medieval Bosnian state.
[2] Soli or Só was a zemlja located in today's northern Bosnia and Herzegovina,[6][7] centered around the town of Tuzla.
[3] Formally, which means in terms of names and compactness of areas, some other regions of the Bosnian state were reminiscent of zemlja.