had turned against his father and occupied the town called Blagaj and other places, including “Duo Castelli al ponte de Neretua.”.
In 1468 Mostar came under Ottoman rule and the urbanization of the settlement began. Following the unwritten oriental rule, the town was organized into two distinct areas: čaršija, the crafts and commercial centre of the settlement, and mahala or a residential area. In 1468 Mostar acquired the name Köprühisar, meaning fortress at the bridge, at the centre of which was a cluster of 15 houses.
The town was fortified between the years 1520 and 1566, and the wooden bridge was rebuilt in stone. The stone bridge, the Old Bridge (Stari Most), was erected in 1566 on the orders of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman ruler. Later becoming the city's symbol, the Old Bridge (Stari Most) is one of the most important structures of the Ottoman era and perhaps Bosnia's most recognizable architectural piece, and was designed by Mimar Hayruddin, a student and apprentice of the famous Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. In the late 16th century, Mostar was the chief administrative city for the Ottoman Empire in the Herzegovinaregion.
The Stari Most bridge: 28 meters long and 20 meters high (90' by 64'), quickly became a wonder in its own time. The famous traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote in the 17th century that:the bridge is like a rainbow arch soaring up to the skies, extending from one cliff to the other. ...I, a poor and miserable slave of Allah, have passed through 16 countries, but I have never seen such a high bridge. It is thrown from rock to rock as high as the sky.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire absorbed Mostar in 1878 and it ruled there until the aftermath of World War I in 1918. During this period, Mostar was recognized as the unofficial capital of all of Herzegovina (as it always was). The first church in the city of Mostar, a Serbian Orthodox Church, was built in 1834. during the Turkish rule. In 1881 the town
