Slovenia

Slovenia packs Alps, karst, plain and sea into a small space. The Julian Alps rise in the north-west to Triglav, the three-headed peak on the flag, above the glacial lakes of Bled and Bohinj and the emerald Soča. In the south-west the limestone plateau of Kras gave its name to karst everywhere, and rivers vanish into caves such as Postojna, where the olm, a blind salamander, lives in darkness. A short Adriatic coast holds the Venetian-built town of Piran, and the Mura plains open to the north-east.

Slavic settlers arrived in the sixth century, and the Freising manuscripts, written around 1000, are the oldest surviving texts in Slovene. The Habsburgs ruled these lands for some six centuries; Primož Trubar printed the first Slovene books in 1550. In 1915–17 the Soča valley saw some of the bloodiest fighting of the First World War. Slovenia joined the Yugoslav state in 1918 and broke away in June 1991 after a ten-day war; it entered the EU in 2004.

France Prešeren, whose poem ‘Zdravljica’ gives the national anthem its words, is honoured with a holiday for culture. The Carniolan honeybee is native here, and old hives were fronted with painted panels. Lipizzaner horses have been bred at Lipica since 1580, and the ski-flying hill at Planica draws crowds each March. Krka in Novo Mesto makes generic medicines, Gorenje of Velenje builds household appliances, Renault assembles small cars, and the port of Koper handles cargo for central Europe.