The expected publication on June 30 of the census, conducted in 2013, is widely expected to raise tensions in the ethnically divided country, where memories of the 1992-95 conflict remain fresh.
The war killed 100,000 people and displaced 2 million more amid widespread forced movements of civilians on all sides.
Although they have not been leaked, the new census figures are likely to confirm that the once ethnically mixed capital, Sarajevo, is now overwhelmingly Bosnian Muslim.
Comment: Some preliminary results:
The first census since the end of the civil war in Bosnia shows the country's population shrank by nearly one-quarter over the past 25 years. According to the 2013 census published on June 30, 3.5 million people live in the country, compared with the nearly 4.4 million counted in 1991. Half of the population -- or 50.11 percent -- are Muslim Bosniaks, 30.78 per cent are Christian Orthodox Serbs, and 15.43 percent are Roman Catholic Croats.
Comment: Authorities from the Republic of Srpska immediately refused to recognize the census. As journalist Zlatko Dizdarevic put it, "Without 50 percent means sharing power in three equal parts. More than 50 percent of one ethnic group would be a different state, a Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] Bosnia-Herzegovina with two other minorities."
A little history: The Weight of Chains: US/NATO Destruction of Yugoslavia (Documentary)