Bijela is a coastal town within the municipality of Herceg Novi. It is located north of Herceg Novi, by the Verige strait of the Boka Kotorska . The 2003 census put the population at 3,748. Bijela is the home of Bijela Adriatic shipyard, the largest maintenance and repair shipyard dock in Montenegro.
The 16th Century Pope Sixtus V was descended from a family originating in the area of Bijela. As noted by the chronicler Andrija Zmajević, the future Pope father was Piergentile di Giacomo, who was born in the village Bjelske Kruševice near Bijela and moved to Italy to escape the tide of Ottoman conquest.
