Flag of Slovenia | Coat of Arms: Sea mountain stars
The Slovenian flag consists of the generic horizontaly disposed tricolor (similar to the Russian flag): white, blue and red. Each color takes one third of the width of the flag. The national flag of Slovenia has in upper left side the national coat of arms of Slovenia. Vexillology and heraldry in searching the flag meaning and history tells us that the Slovenian tricolor dates back two centuries ago and is based on the flag of the Duchy of Carniola, which in turn dates back to the 13th century.
The other State symbol is the national coat of arms of Slovenia, which consists of a shield with a blue background representing the highest country mountain Triglav in white, under which are two blue lines representing the sea and rivers and above which are located three golden, six-pointed stars forming a downward-pointing triangle. The shield is bordered in red.
Area: 20,273 km2
Population: 2,000,000
Capital city: Ljubljana
Language: Slovene; also Italian and Hungarian in nationally mixed areas
Currency: Euro
Important dates:
Independence – 25 June 1991
Member of EU – 1 May 2004
Slovenia is a democratic republic and a social state governed by law.
President of the Republic: Dr Janez Drnovšek
Prime Minister: Janez Janša
Government: Prime Minister, 15 Ministers, 1 Minister without Portfolio
National Assembly: 90 deputies (88 elected representatives of the parliamentary parties and one representative each from the Italian and Hungarian national communities).
National Council: 40 elected representatives of employers, employees, farmers, tradesmen and the self-employed, as well as from the non-economic sector and local interest groups.
Conventional form: Republic of Slovenia, Slovenia
Constitution proclaimed in December 1991, and its constitutional system is a parliamentary democracy. Slovenia became an EU member on 1 May 2004.
Slovenia; population
Slovenia, to the epoch of the last census (2001) counted almost 2000000 inhabitants; contrarily of the other republics of former Yugoslavia, Slovenia has always had a homogeneous population, and also for this reason the separation from the federation has happened in a relatively painless way: in fact the Slovenians constitute 87,8% of the whole population, while the other ethnicities on the territory of the state cover negligible quotas. In the order, the 2,8% of the population are composed by Croatian, 2,4 by Serbs, while Magyars and Italian have respectively the 0,4 and 0,2% The ethnic minorities are assemble in the small zones where they have therefore a certain importance. The Italians live in clear prevalence along the coast, while the Magyars accumulated in the Prekmurje, near the border with Hungary; laws exist to protect the minorities and the obcines (communes) with strong Italian and Magyar concentration are bilingual (Koper, Piran and Izola on the coast, Lendava near the border with Hungary).
The population is not homogeneously distributed on the territory and the greatest concentration is recorded in the urbanized areas. The nucleus of the Slovenians live in the basin of Ljubljana.
Slovenia: transportation and communication
The road net in Slovenia is internationally based on two axes of connection: the first one connects Italy and Mediterranean Europe to the Pannonian lowland, the second unites Germany and Austria to the Balkan peninsula. The two axes cross in Ljubljana, which became the main center of Slovenia for this motive.
The connections with Zagreb and the Croatia are covered by the old highway for Belgrade that crosses the border in Obrezje.