Coal production has been exploited on Mount Majevica since 1899. Within a century, the Majevicans developed the initial small dig into today’s giant surface mine producing 6,000 tonnes of coal per day and the giant coal-fired power plant “Termoelektrana Ugljevik” (Ugljevik Power Plant), supplying the Republic with 300 megawatts of electricity. Preparations are underway for the construction of another power-plant of 600 MW. Exploration indicates huge reserves of quality coal, with seams stretching in every direction, even reaching Zvornik on the Drina river. The administrative center of the Municipality was the village of Zabrdje, to be transferred to the mining community of Ugljevik (now named Stari Ugljevik (Old Ugljevik)) in 1941, after Zabrdje was burned by Ustaše. The present-day Ugljevik began to be built in 1980 in the valley of Janja river (one of theDrina’s tributaries) between Zabrdje, Stari Ugljevik, Bogutovo Selo and Ugljevicka Obrijez, in answer to the need for increasing the surface mining operations and building the power-plant. The whole of the old Ugljevik was then moved to this new site.
At least ten archaeological archaeological locations have been found in the area. These includes five locations with groupings of medieval stone sarcophagi, called stecci in Serbian, and three dating from the Roman period. Though research into Neolithic sites in the Municipality is lacking, near-by areas have Neolithic archaeological sites, allowing pòstulation that there may have been ancient sites present. The village of Tutnjevac contains the remains of a Roman villa.
The first population census of the region showed five settlements with a total of 55 houses, which date from prior to arrival of Osmanli Turks in the 15th century. During troubled times the population would leave these parts with most of the succeeding population—the forbears of the present Majevicans—coming from Eastern and ‘Old’ Herzegovina in the
