The Crkvenica ( sr-cyrl, Црквеница) is a
Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...
n river. It is a right bank tributary of the
Vrbanja River.
Crkvenica rises between the northwestern slopes of
Očauš and
Šipraška brda mountains, flowing southeast at around above sea level. The river drains the central part of the northern slopes of the Dinaric mountain
massif
In geology, a massif ( or ) is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole. The term also refers to a ...
and its mouth is in
Šiprage
Šiprage ( sr-Cyrl, Шипраге) is a settlement municipality in the Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska entity, Kotor Varoš Municipality.
The administrative status of this populated place was changed – from the local community has gr ...
(
Kotor Varoš
Kotor Varoš ( sr-cyrl, Котор Варош) is a town and municipality located in north-western Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As of 2013 census, it has a population of 19,710 inhabitants, while the town of Kotor Varo ...
) with a length of .
The river is known for its water mills; during the 1950s, they numbered approximately 18.
The narrow area of its
headwaters
The headwaters of a river or stream is the farthest place in that river or stream from its estuary or downstream confluence with another river, as measured along the course of the river. It is also known as a river's source.
Definition
The ...
contains a
watershed
Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to:
Hydrology
* Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins
* Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
between the confluence of the
Vrbas and the
Bosna Rivers.
Tufa
Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitate out of water in unheated rivers or lakes. Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less porous) carbonate deposits, which are known as travertine. ...
stećci on the Crkvenica riverbank is a relic of the
Bogomil
Bogomilism ( Bulgarian and Macedonian: ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", bogumilstvo, богумилство) was a Christian neo-Gnostic or dualist sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Pe ...
settlement in the twelfth century. The stećci was originally located at the confluence of the Crkvenica and the Vrbanja.
[Radimsky V. (1892): Ostanci rimskih naseobina u Šipragi i Podbrgju, za tim starobosanski stećci u Šipragi i uz Vrbanju u Bosni. Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Sarajevu, Godina IV, Knjiga I: 75-80.] The stones were quarried and built into the walls of the surrounding buildings, possibly due to belief in their miraculous properties. One of the most well-preserved
tombstones is in its original location, submerged in the River Vrbanja.
References
Rivers of Bosnia and Herzegovina
{{BosniaHerzegovina-river-stub