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History

Around 2000 BC, Ljubljana Marshes were settled by lake dwellers, who lived in wooden dwellings built on stilts driven into the lake bed. The city area was later settled by the Veneti. In the 3rd century BC, the Ljubljana basin was settled by the Celts.

In the 1st century AD, after the Celtic kingdom of Noricum had been annexed to the Roman Empire, the settlement was given the Roman name Emona and fortified with a wall. It was a strategic staging post and a thriving centre of trade with a population of 6,000. The decline of Emona, sacked by the Huns in 452, was simultaneous with the decline of the Western Roman Empire.

In the 6th century the area at the foot of Ljubljana's castle hill was settled by the Slavs. In the 9th century it came under Frankish administration and later passed into the hands of the Carinthian noble family of Spanheim.

In the 13th century, Ljubljana (at the time called Laibach) saw the flourishing of crafts and trade. In 1270 it was conquered by the Czech king Přemysl Otakar II. In 1278 it fell under the Hapsburg rule.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, during the Reformation period, culture and art began to flourish in Ljubljana; the first book written in Slovenian was published and the first secondary school and library were established.

The end of the 17th century saw the foundation of the Academia operosorum, a society of scholars who invited numerous foreign artists and architects to work in Ljubljana. The city assumed a Baroque appearance, the jewel in its crown being Francesco Robba's Fountain of Three Carniolan Rivers.

Between 1809 and 1813 Ljubljana was the capital of the Illyrian Provinces, founded by Napoleon after the Austrian defeat at the Battle of Wagram. Slovenian became one of the Provinces' official languages. In the 19th century, the banks of the Ljubljanica river were landscaped and several new bridges were built. Ljubljana was connected by railway to Trieste and Vienna. It was home to the greatest Slovenian poet, France Prešeren. In 1895 it suffered a devastating earthquake, but was quickly rebuilt. A large number of buildings were designed in the Art Nouveau style.

In 1918, after the First World War and the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Ljubljana became the administrative centre of Slovenia as part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians. Between the two World Wars, its appearance was being created by the world renowned Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik.

During the Second World War, Ljubljana was occupied first by the Italian and later by the German army and surrounded with a 30-kilometre barbed wire fence. After the war it became the capital of Slovenia as part of the former Yugoslavia.

In 1990, the citizens of Slovenia voted for an autonomous state, declared on 25 June 1991, and Ljubljana became its capital. In May 2004 Slovenia entered the European Union.