Upper Carniola - Geographical Extension

Geographical Extension

Upper Carniola is bounded by Carinthia (i.e. the Austrian state of Carinthia and Slovenian Carinthia) in the north, the historic Lower Styria (Štajerska) region in the east and the Slovenian Littoral (Primorska) in the west. In the south, the Ljubljanica and Sava rivers form the border to Inner Carniola and Lower Carniola resp. The landscape is characterised by the mountains of the Southern Limestone Alps, predominantly by the Julian Alps and the Karavanke range at its northern rim.

Historically, Ljubljana was part of Upper Carniola. However, already in the 19th century, it started to be considered as a separate unit; already by the late 18th century, there are very few reference to the people of Ljubljana as "Upper Carniolans" (Gorenjci, Oberkrainer): it was a general perception that Upper Carniola proper starts only north of Ljubljana. Since the 19th century, Kranj, not Ljubljana, is considered as the unofficial capital of Upper Carniola.

Nowadays, the borders of Upper Carniola are usually identified with those of the Slovene statistical region of Gorenjska, though the areas are only roughly congruent. E.g. the municipality of Jezersko used to be part of the Duchy of Carinthia, in 1918 it was occupied by Slovene volunteers and annexed to Yugoslavia by the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain. Nevertheless it is today generally considered as an integral part of Upper Carniola, rather than of Slovenian Carinthia.