Number of students (2009): 39.507
Number of tourists (2009): 355.489
Number of overnight stays (2009): 670.758

Ljubljana in short
Ljubljana is certainly a city with a high quality of life. It is a city of greenery, its very centre occupied by parks and forests, and it also represents an ideal departure point for the discovery of all the variety Slovenia has to offer. The unique Karst region, the Adriatic coast, the mountains, the hilly wine-growing regions, the spas, and many historic towns are all within a two-hour drive.

Ljubljana - beloved
Laburus / an ancient city deity named by the early Slavs
aluviana (lat.) / flooding river
laubach / a swamp
beloved, luba / playwright and historian Anton Tomaž Linhart and others who love Ljubljana

Dragon, the Symbol of Ljubljana
A long time ago, the Greek hero Jason and his companions from the ship Argo, stole the Golden Fleece from the Colchian king. In an effort to escape its pursuers the ship took a wrong turn and, instead of sailing south on the Aegean Sea, it found its way to the mouth of the Danube river.

As there was no way back for them, they continued on up the Danube, the Sava and eventually the Ljubljanica. At the source of the Ljubljanica they stopped, took the ship apart, put the pieces on their shoulders and thus carried the ship to the Adriatic sea, where they put it back together and continued their way back home.

Between the present-day Vrhnika and Ljubljana the Argonauts found a big lake surrounded by a marsh. It was here that Jason came across a terrible marsh monster, which he fought and eventually slew. This monster was the Ljubljana dragon, which today has its permanent abode on top of the castle tower in the Ljubljana coat of arms.

The old meets the new
In Ljubljana the old meets the new; and it seems that history has spent all of the settlement's five millennia preparing it to become the nation's capital. It has managed to retain traces from all periods of its rich history; from the legacy of Roman Emona; through to the Renaissance, Baroque and Art Nouveau periods characterised in the house fronts and ornate doorways of the city centre, the romantic bridges adorning the Ljubljanica river, the lopsided rooftops and a park reaching deep into the city centre. Here eastern and western cultures met; and the Italian concept of art combined with the sculptural aesthetics of Central European cathedrals.

The city owes its present appearance partly to Italian baroque and partly to Art Nouveau, which is the style of the numerous buildings erected immediately after the earthquake of 1895. In the first half of the 20th century, modern Ljubljana was shaped by the strong personal style of Jože Plečnik, a great European architect and a local of Ljubljana. The cityscape was complemented by his modernist followers as well as by creations of the "New Wave" of acknowledged young architects. All the different facets of Ljubljana blend harmoniously into a single image.

Ljubljana castle