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Neum is the only town situated along Bosnia and Herzegovina's {{convert|20|km|mi|adj=on}} coastline,{{Cite web |date=2007-06-13 |title=CIA - The World Factbook -- Field Listing - Coastline |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2060.html |access-date=2023-11-16 |archive-date=13 June 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613004524/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2060.html |url-status=dead }} making it the country's only access to the Adriatic Sea.[http://www.britannica.com/place/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina Bosnia-and-Herzegovina Neum britannica.com], britannica.com, 2015-09-09 It is enclosed by the Klek Peninsula, which itself is separated from the Adriatic Sea by the Pelješac peninsula.

Neum is {{convert|47|km|mi|abbr=on}} northwest of Dubrovnik, {{convert|50|km|mi|abbr=on}} south of Mostar, and {{convert|122|km|mi|abbr=on}} southwest of Sarajevo, the country's capital.

The Bosnia and Herzegovina coastal strip of Neum cuts off the southernmost Croatian exclave from the rest of Croatia. This is a result of the Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699. Since 1991 and the breakup of Yugoslavia, the border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Neum region have been international borders.{{cite book |author1=UNEP / PAP/RAC / Ministarstvo spoljne trgovine i ekonomskih odnosa BiH |url=https://ekonsultacije.gov.ba/legislationactivities/downloaddocument?documentId=12676 |title=Program upravljanja obalnim područjem (CAMP) Bosne i Hercegovine |publisher=ekonsultacije.gov.ba |edition=Studija izvodljivosti |chapter=4.1 Prijedlog za CAMP oblast |format=pdf |access-date=6 November 2022}}{{Dead link|date=August 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}

File:R0000460 Neum.jpg|Neum

File:AdriaticWar.jpg|Promenade along Neum's shoreline

File:Water polo court in Neum.jpg|Waterpolo court in Neum

File:Neum02450.JPG|Zenička beach in Neum

File:Neum-Bosnia.Herzegovina.jpg|Residential Neum

File:Lighthouse in Neum.jpg|Neum Lighthouse

File:Feral Beach on the souther side of Neum peninsula, 2024.jpg|Feral Beach on the southern side of Neum peninsula

The municipality includes the town of Neum (municipal seat) and several villages:{{cite web|title=Naseljena Mjesta 1991/2013|url=http://www.statistika.ba/?show=12&id=10685|publisher=Statistical Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina|accessdate=October 10, 2021|language=Bosnian}}

Babin Do, Borut, Brestica, Broćanac, Brštanica, Cerovica, Cerovo, Crnoglav, Dobri Do, Dobrovo, Donji Drijen, Donji Zelenikovac, Dubravica, Duži, Glumina, Gornje Hrasno, Gradac, Hotanj Hutovski, Hutovo, Kiševo, Moševići, Prapratnica, Previš, Rabrani, Vinine and Žukovica.

Neum has two border crossing checkpoints with Croatia on the European route E65 or Adriatic Highway which connects the two parts of Croatia's Dalmatian coast. Neum 1 is located to the northwest of the city, with the Klek border checkpoint on the Croatian side. Neum 2 is located to the southeast, with the Croatian border checkpoint at Zaton Doli.

{{See|Bosansko Primorje}}

The Neum corridor dates back to the Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699, whereby the Republic of Ragusa was separated from the Dalmatian possessions of its rival Venice by two buffer zones ceded by Ragusa to the Ottoman Empire to prevent the possibility of Venice invading via land:{{Cite web|url=https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-bosnia-ended-up-with-just-12-miles-of-coastline|title=This Country's Coastline Is So Short, You Could Walk It in A Day|first=Ken|last=Jennings|website=Condé Nast Traveler|date=19 September 2016 }}{{Cite web|url=https://www.bigdatabih.com/blog/2018/12/24/why-does-bosnia-have-a-coast/|title=Why does Bosnia have a Coast?|date=December 24, 2018|access-date=17 May 2020|archive-date=14 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814060105/https://www.bigdatabih.com/blog/2018/12/24/why-does-bosnia-have-a-coast/|url-status=dead}} north of its territory is Neum and the bay of Klek, and south of its territory is Sutorina with the port of Herceg Novi on the Bay of Kotor, part of Montenegro since 1947 (later the topic of the now-resolved Sutorina dispute).

The Karlowitz borders were reaffirmed in 1718 by the Treaty of Passarowitz, but then the Ottomans, tired of negotiating in vain with Venice for a widening of their maritime access, simply usurped the territory of Gornji Klek and most of Klek from Ragusa, which it had bought from King Dabiša of Bosnia at the end of the 14th century. After the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Austrian Empire, which had annexed both the Dalmatian possessions of Venice and the territory of Ragusa, tried to buy back the Neum and Sutorina enclaves from the Ottomans, but in vain. Instead, it stationed a warship to block access to the port of Neum until the Treaty of Berlin, which gave the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary in 1878. Neum had been under Ottoman control for 179 years.

Consideration was given to a plan to build a new advanced naval base at Neum-Klek by the Austro-Hungarian Navy. General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf considered fortifying Neum with coastal batteries and torpedo craft to supplement seafront defenses (in order to prevent Italian raids, or worse a large scale Italian landing). The project never got past the planning stage prior to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qU4MJvR_yUAC|title=Austro-Hungarian Naval Policy, 1904-14|first=Milan N.|last=Vego|date=July 1, 1996|publisher=Frank Cass|isbn=9780714642093|via=Google Books}}

File:Memorial to Croatian veterans (Spomen obilježje hrvatskim braniteljima) Neum 2024 1.jpg

In 1918, as a consequence of Austro-Hungarian defeat, Neum joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which would become the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. Under the Karađorđević dynasty, the Yugoslav Government ignored the historical borders twice: in 1929, when the Neum area was included in the Littoral Banovina, and in 1939 when, following the Cvetković–Maček Agreement, it was included in the Banovina of Croatia. Josip Broz Tito's federal Yugoslavia was founded on the principle, declared at the 1943 AVNOJ session in Jajce and comparatively well-respected by the Đilas commission in 1945, of establishing the federative republics in their borders of 1878, which is why the Neum enclave is now part of independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, including most of Klek (Ponta Kleka, Rep Kleka), the two islets Veliki and Mali Školj and the rock of Lopata in the Bay of Klek.{{Cite web|url=http://poskok.info/wp/?p=28311|title="Neum i granični problemi", Poskok.info, December 14th, 2012|access-date=28 October 2013|archive-date=6 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706075305/https://poskok.info/wp/?p=28311|url-status=dead}}

Since the 1990s, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have been in negotiations on how to handle traffic across the Neum region, including signing a Neum Agreement. When Croatia was admitted to the European Union in 2013, the border crossings in the Neum region became governed as external borders of the EU.{{Citation needed|reason=I want to read more about this|date=August 2019}} The construction and opening in 2022 of the Pelješac Bridge, which bypasses Neum entirely, has significance for Croatia's integrity and also for its Schengen Area membership and the EU as a whole. It significantly improves traffic flow and the traffic connection of Dubrovnik to the rest of mainland Croatia, avoiding negotiating long, costly queues at Neum, and strict customs checks twice within the space of {{convert|20|km|mi}}.

Encouraged by the recent developments in Croatia–Slovenia border disputes (June 2017), the ruling Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and other Bosniak political parties decided to obstruct {{citation needed|date=August 2022}} the construction.

File:BiH Coast Guard.jpg

The construction cost was €420 million, to which the EU contributed by allocating €357 million from Cohesion Policy funds. The bridge is among the largest infrastructures in Croatia currently and one of the most substantial EU infrastructural investment ever. The work was completed in mid 2022. The EU is also funding supporting infrastructure, such as the construction of access roads, including tunnels, bridges and viaducts, the building of an 8 km-long bypass near the town of Ston and upgrading works on the existing road D414.{{Cite web|url=https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/newsroom/panorama/2022/07/27-07-2022-bridging-gaps-with-eu-funds-the-inauguration-of-the-peljesac-bridge-in-croatia|title=Inforegio - Bridging gaps with EU-funds: The Inauguration of the Pelješac Bridge in Croatia|website=ec.europa.eu}}

There are Bosniak plans to convert Neum to a freight port, contrary to the wishes of the local population and international laws and agreements concerning the ecologically significant and protected Bay of Mali Ston, of which Bay of Neum is a part. There are plans to build a seaport, rail and a motorway and thus the Croatian bridge must have a high clearance according to the view of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Bosniak political parties. Due to the above, the Republic of Croatia has significantly increased the height of the bridge by adapting it to ships whose dimensions cannot enter the Bay of Neum at all. Today the main freight port for Bosnia and Herzegovina is Ploče (in Croatia) farther north, which has a railway to Bosnia and Herzegovina.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

The climate of the area is Mediterranean, characterized by mild winters and dry summers, with three times more rain in the rainier than in the drier months, during which the mean precipitation does not exceed {{cvt|40|mm|in}}. The mean yearly precipitation observed is of {{cvt|1316|mm|in}}. The dominant winds come from the north, north-east and north-west. The average sea temperature (as observed in Neum) ranges from {{cvt|13|°C}} in January to {{cvt|28|°C}} in July and August.

Vegetation is the evergreen Mediterranean type, and subtropical flora (palm trees, agaves, cacti) grow in Neum and its surroundings.

{{Weather box

| location = Neum

| metric first = yes

| single line = yes

| Jan high C = 9.7

| Feb high C = 11.3

| Mar high C = 14.3

| Apr high C = 17.5

| May high C = 22.5

| Jun high C = 26.2

| Jul high C = 29.7

| Aug high C = 29.4

| Sep high C = 25.9

| Oct high C = 20.6

| Nov high C = 14.8

| Dec high C = 11.2

| Jan mean C = 6.6

| Feb mean C = 7.9

| Mar mean C = 10.2

| Apr mean C = 13.0

| May mean C = 17.6

| Jun mean C = 21.2

| Jul mean C = 24.4

| Aug mean C = 24.2

| Sep mean C = 20.9

| Oct mean C = 16.3

| Nov mean C = 11.4

| Dec mean C = 8.2

| year mean C = 15.2

| Jan low C = 3.6

| Feb low C = 4.5

| Mar low C = 6.1

| Apr low C = 8.6

| May low C = 12.7

| Jun low C = 16.3

| Jul low C = 19.2

| Aug low C = 19.0

| Sep low C = 16.0

| Oct low C = 12.1

| Nov low C = 8.0

| Dec low C = 5.2

| Jan precipitation mm = 135

| Feb precipitation mm = 123

| Mar precipitation mm = 106

| Apr precipitation mm = 100

| May precipitation mm = 75

| Jun precipitation mm = 59

| Jul precipitation mm = 38

| Aug precipitation mm = 52

| Sep precipitation mm = 88

| Oct precipitation mm = 127

| Nov precipitation mm = 174

| Dec precipitation mm = 172

| year precipitation mm = 1249

| date = October 2020

}}

The settlement is predominantly Croats.

The linđo is traditionally danced in the Neum region.{{Cite web |title=50. Split Summer |url=http://www.splitsko-ljeto.hr/50splitskoljeto/koncertni_program/lado/index.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080610135613/http://www.splitsko-ljeto.hr/50splitskoljeto/koncertni_program/lado/index.htm |archive-date=2008-06-10 |access-date=2008-09-02}} Neum celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Good Health as its municipal day. As part of the celebrations, Neum hosts the Music Festival Etnofest Neum. The town also hosts the Neum Animated Film Festival.[http://www.rfaf.ba Neum Animated Film Festival] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080916194527/http://www.rfaf.ba/ |date=2008-09-16 }}

Neum is home to local branches of the cultural organizations Matica hrvatska and HKD Napredak.{{Cite web|url=http://www.matica.hr/ogranci/|title=Matica hrvatska|website=www.matica.hr}}{{Cite web|url=http://napredak.com.ba/nova/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=39&limit=1&limitstart=8|title=HKD Napredak}}{{Dead link|date=March 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{Clear}}

Popular activities include swimming and sun bathing, beach-going, boating, and various other water-sports. Neum has a water polo club VK Jadran Neum, which is a member of the Croatian Water Polo Federation.

There is also an association football club HNK Neum.

{{Clear}}

File:Narodna nošnja iz Neuma.jpg|Folk costumes from Neum

File:Nova crkva u Neumu i Hotel "Sunce".JPG|Roman Catholic church in Neum

File:Catholic Church of Our Lady of Health ("Crkva Gospe od Zdravlja") in Neum.jpg|Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Health

File:Hutovo, trosky.jpg|Hutovo fortress ruins

File:Neum02465.JPG|Stećak from Neum

Neum area has steep hills, stone-sandy beaches, and several large tourist hotels. Neum has about 5,000 beds for tourists, 1,810 in hotels with the remaining capacity in motels, villas, and private accommodation. Tourism in Neum is active only in the coastal region. Prices tend to be lower than in neighbouring Croatia, making it popular with shoppers. Tourism, and the commerce it brings, is the leading contributor to the economy of the area.

The inland area behind Neum has a rich archeological history and wilderness with centuries-old olive groves.

• Bosnia and Herzegovina–Croatia relations
• List of lighthouses in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Pelješac Bridge

{{reflist}}

{{Commons category|Neum}}

• {{official}} (in Croatian and English)
• [https://www.naff.ba/default_x.asp Neum Animated Film Festival]
• {{Wikivoyage-inline}}
• {{osmrelation-inline|255533266}}

{{Neum municipality}}

{{Herzegovina-Neretva Canton}}

{{Political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina}}

{{coord|42|55|30|N|17|37|00|E|region:BA_type:city|display=title}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Populated places in Neum

Category:Populated coastal places in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Category:Port cities and towns of the Adriatic Sea

Category:Bosnia and Herzegovina–Croatia border crossings

Category:Lighthouses in Bosnia and Herzegovina