Bosniaks, often referred to as Bosnian Muslims, are a South Slavic ethnic group and nation native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and constitute the largest ethnic group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by Serbs and Croats. They are one of the three constitutive nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They share a common ancestry, culture, history and the Bosnian language; and traditionally and predominantly adhere to Sunni Islam. The Bosniaks constitute significant native communities in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo as well. Largely due to displacement stemming from the Bosnian War and Genocide in the 1990s, they also form a significant diaspora with several Bosniak communities across Europe, the Americas and Oceania.
A distinct identity of Bosnian Muslims began to form after the Islamisation of the Christian multi-ethnic Slavic-speaking population in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of the 15th and, mainly, in the 16th century, following the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosniaks are typically characterised by their historic ties to the Bosnian historical region, adherence to Islam since the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Bosnian language, a standardised variety of Serbo-Croatian. During Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian Muslims largely rejected the modern form of nationhood and the Bosniak name promoted by the Austrian-Hungarian authorities, which they considered a foreign imposition. Their elites were divided between the Serb and Croat national identities, a situation that persisted after World War I and World War II until their distinct national identity as Muslims was recognised by the Yugoslav constitution in 1974. Bosniaks self-identified simply as Muslims in a national sense until 1993, when their leading political Party of Democratic Action adopted the term Bosniak.
