Ljubljana

Sister cities

• Graz
• Tbilisi

History

Around 2000 BC, the Ljubljana Marsh was settled by people living in pile dwellings. Prehistoric pile dwellings and the oldest wooden wheel in the world are among the most notable archeological findings from the marshland. These lake-dwelling people survived through hunting, fishing and primitive agriculture. To get around the marshes, they used dugout canoes made by cutting out the inside of tree trunks. Their archaeological remains, nowadays in the Municipality of Ig, have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site since June 2011, in the common nomination of six Alpine states. Later, the area remained a transit point, for groups including the Illyrians, followed by a mixed nation of the Celts and the Illyrians called the Iapodes, and then in the 3rd century BC a Celtic tribe, the Taurisci. Around 50 BC, the Romans built a military encampment that later became a permanent settlement called Iulia Aemona. This entrenched fort was occupied by the Legio XV Apollinaris. In 452, it was destroyed by the Huns under Attila's orders, Emona housed 5,000 to 6,000 inhabitants and played an important role during battles. Its plastered brick houses, painted in different colours, were connected to a drainage system. Not much is known about the area during the settlement of Slavs in the period between the downfall of Emona and the Early Middle Ages. The parchment sheet Nomina defunctorum ("Names of the Dead"), most probably written in the second half of 1161, mentions the nobleman Rudolf of Tarcento, a lawyer of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, who had bestowed a canon with 20 farmsteads beside the castle of Ljubljana (castrum Leibach) to the Patriarchate. According to the historian Peter Štih's deduction, this happened between 1112 and 1125, the earliest mention of Ljubljana. The…

Geography

The city covers . Ljubljana has grown considerably since the 1970s, mainly by merging with nearby settlements. The city stretches out on an alluvial plain dating to the Quaternary era. The mountainous regions nearby are older, dating from the Mesozoic (Triassic) or Paleozoic. Earthquakes have repeatedly devastated Ljubljana, notably in 1511 and 1895. Ljubljana has an elevation of . The city centre, located along the river, sits at . Ljubljana Castle, which sits atop Castle Hill () south of the city centre, has an elevation of . The highest point of the city, called Grmada, reaches , more than the nearby Mount Saint Mary () peak, a popular hiking destination. These are located in the northern part of the city. The confluence is the lowest point of Ljubljana, with an elevation of . Southern and western parts of the city are more flood-endangered than northern parts. The Gruber Canal has partly diminished the danger of floods in the Ljubljana Marsh, the largest marsh in Slovenia, south of the city. The two major ponds in Ljubljana are Koseze Pond in the Šiška District and Tivoli Pond in the southern part of Tivoli City Park. Koseze Pond has rare plant and animal species and is a place of meeting and recreation. Tivoli Pond is a shallow pond with a small volume that was originally used for boating and ice skating, but is now used for fishing. Ljubljana's climate is oceanic (Köppen climate classification: Cfb), bordering on a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfa), with continental characteristics such as warm summers and moderately cold winters. July and August are the warmest months with daily high temperatures generally between , and January is the coldest month with temperatures mostly around . The city experiences up to 90 days of frost per…

Most-observed species

• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,972
• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,939
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,845
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,691
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,637
• Common Chaffinch

  Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,481
• Common Buzzard

  Buteo buteo (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,346
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,299

Most recent

• M 3.9 — 2023-07-29
  8 km ENE of Klana, Croatia
• M 4 — 2020-07-17
  5 km SSE of Bovec, Slovenia
• M 3.5 — 2020-05-13
  3 km NE of Crikvenica, Croatia
• M 4 — 2017-08-08
  3 km SSW of Jadranovo, Croatia
• M 4.3 — 2015-11-01
  5 km SSW of Brežice, Slovenia
• M 4 — 2015-08-29
  4 km E of Kobarid, Slovenia