Eight Cities Where Authority Is Divided or Disputed, from Mitrovica to Stepanakert

Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo, is divided along the Ibar River, with a mainly ethnic-Albanian south and a mainly ethnic-Serb north. It has been divided along ethnic lines in practice since 1999 and was formally split into two municipalities in 2008. The 2024 census counted 72,662 inhabitants in the municipality, and the Mitrovica Bridge has become a recognized symbol of the divide.

Banja Luka is the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the most populous city in Republika Srpska, which makes it that entity's main economic, political and administrative centre. The 2013 census gave the city proper 138,963 people and its wider administrative area 185,042. Here the division of authority is internal: a city inside a self-governing entity within one country.

Doboj also lies in Republika Srpska, on the Bosna river in the north of the country. It was first documented on 28 June 1415 in a charter issued by Dubrovnik to Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, and it received formal city status in July 2012. It is the largest national railway junction in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and recorded 71,441 inhabitants in 2013.

Bijeljina, in the northeast, is the provincial centre of Semberija, a flat farming region between the Sava and Drina rivers. First documented in 1446, it fell to the Ottomans in 1530 and was under Austro-Hungarian administration from 1878 to 1918. It became an official city in July 2012 and, with 107,715 inhabitants in 2013, is the second largest city in Republika Srpska after Banja Luka.

Donetsk is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine on the Kalmius River, once known as Yuzivka and, under Soviet rule, Stalino. It is currently occupied by Russia as the capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. Its core population was estimated at 901,645, with over two million in the metropolitan area as of 2011, making it the fifth largest city in Ukraine at the 2001 census.

Sukhumi, also spelled Sokhumi, sits in a wide bay on the eastern Black Sea coast and is the capital and largest city of Abkhazia, a partially recognized state that most countries consider part of Georgia. Abkhazia has controlled the city since the war of 1992 to 1993. Today it is a port, rail junction and resort town with an airport and a recorded population of 65,146.

Tskhinvali, on the Great Liakhvi River, is the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia. It was renamed Staliniri in 1934 and reverted to Tskhinvali in 1961. The city suffered heavy shelling and occupation in fighting in 1992 and again in the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, and its recorded population fell from 42,934 at the 1989 Soviet census to 30,432 in 2015.

Stepanakert, known in Azerbaijani as Khankendi, lies in a valley on the left bank of the Karkar River in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. It was capital of the Soviet-era autonomous oblast established in 1923 and later the de facto capital of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, reaching about 75,000 people by 2021. After Azerbaijan's 2023 offensive the Armenian population left, and an Azerbaijani population of about 24,000 had settled there by 2026.