Slovenia, a nation of small towns and villages

Ljubljana – Nearly half of incorporated places in Slovenia have fewer than 100 residents and about a quarter of those number fewer than 50 people, shows data recently released by the Statistics Office. The most densely populated settlement is the coastal town of Piran.

Slovenia has just over 6,000 cities, towns and villages, of which 54 are without residents. Most of the deserted villages are in the Kočevje municipality in the south-east.

Piran, famous for its narrow Mediterranean streets, is the most densely-populated place with almost 5,500 residents per square kilometre.

On the other hand, excluding places without any residents, the most sparsely populated place is the village of Podstenice 20 km north-east of Kočevje, which used to be inhabited by Gottschee Germans until WWII. Now it has one resident per twelve square kilometres.

There are only two cities with a population of more than 50,000 – the capital Ljubljana has 284,000 residents, and Maribor around 96,000. People living in the two largest cities account for some 18% of the total population.

The largest share of localities, more than 1,400 or 24%, number between 100 and 199 citizens.

At the beginning of this year, four villages with at least 30 inhabitants had no children, meaning no inhabitants under the age of 15.

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