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Updates: 

I have added population data for 2011. Slovenia uses population registers to produce quarterly population reports. The report for the first quarter of 2011 is designated as the decennial census and complies with European Union directives.

There have been discussions for several years about reorganizing Slovenia into pokrajine (provinces). Under one proposal, the provinces would be the same as the current statistical regions, except that some names would be moderately changed and Savinjska statistical region would be split into Savinjska and Savinjsko-šaleška pokrajine. (See also source [8].)

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-4 is dated 2002-12-10. It replaces the division of Slovenia into twelve statistical regions with a division into 193 municipalities. I have them listed as secondary subdivisions.

There are various ways of partitioning Slovenia. The basic building blocks seem to be the opčine (communes, or municipalities). There were 62 of them in 1991; 147 after a reorganization on 1994-10-04; and 192 after a referendum on 1998-08-07. There are 58 upravne enote (administrative units), which are almost all made up of one or more entire communes. There are other subdivisions called okrajna sodišča, okrožna sodišča, and višja sodišča. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia has defined twelve statistična regije (statistical regions). It remains to be seen which, if any, of these systems becomes established as a standard for Slovenia.

Erratum: In "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries", the statistical regions were incorrectly identified as administrative areas.

International standard ISO 3166-2 was published on December 15, 1998. It superseded ISO/DIS 3166-2 (draft international standard). For Slovenia, the draft standard showed no subdivisions. The final standard showed the twelve statistical regions. These regions and their codes are shown in the first table below. FIPS PUB 10-4 originally listed no subdivisions of Slovenia. Change 1, dated December 1, 1998, lists the 147 communes that existed before the 1998 referendum. They are shown on the Communes of Slovenia page.

Country overview: 

Short name	SLOVENIA
ISO code	SI
FIPS code	SI
Language	Slovenian (sl)
Time zone	+1~
Capital	Ljubljana

 

Before World War I, Slovenia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It consisted of Carniola and parts of Carinthia, Coastland, and Styria provinces of Austria, as well as small parts of Vasvár and Zala counties of Hungary. In the aftermath of World War I, this area was divided between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) and Italy. The border between Italy and Yugoslavia wasn't settled until 1924. In the settlement, Italy received Istria. Yugoslavia was occupied by the axis powers in World War II. After the war, Istria was joined to Yugoslavia. Part of it went to Croatia; the rest eventually became Južna Primorska and Severna Primorska in Slovenia. Meanwhile, Trieste became an independent city in 1947. Its territory was divided into the A Zone (north) and the B Zone (south). In 1954, the B Zone was annexed to Yugoslavia. Slovenia received part of it. On 1991-10-08, Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Slovenien
2. Dutch: Slovenië, Republiek Slovenië (formal)
3. English: Republic of Slovenia (formal)
4. Finnish: Slovenia
5. French: Slovénie f
6. German: Slowenien n
7. Icelandic: Slóvenía
8. Italian: Slovenia f
9. Norwegian: Slovenia, Republikken Slovenia (formal)
10. Portuguese: Eslovénia, Eslovênia (Brazil), República f da Eslovénia f (formal)
11. Slovenian: Republika Slovenija (formal)
12. Russian: Республика Словения (formal)
13. Spanish: Eslovenia
14. Swedish: Slovenien
15. Turkish: Slovenya Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name: 

from ethnic name Slovene, a variant of Slav

Primary subdivisions: 

Slovenia is divided into twelve statistična regije (statistical regions).

Name	HASC	ISO	NUTS	Pop-2011	Pop-2002	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital
Dolenjska	SI.DO	07	SI017	142,483	136,474	2,675	1,033	Nove Mesto
Gorenjska	SI.GO	09	SI022	203,427	195,885	2,137	825	Kranj
Goriška	SI.SP	11	SI023	119,146	118,511	2,325	898	Nova Gorica
Koroška	SI.KO	03	SI013	72,494	73,296	1,041	402	Slovenj Gradec
Notranjsko-kraška	SI.NO	10	SI018	52,287	50,243	1,456	562	Postojna
Obalno-kraška	SI.JP	12	SI024	110,760	102,070	1,044	403	Koper
Osrednjeslovenska	SI.LJ	08	SI021	533,213	488,364	2,555	986	Ljubljana
Podravska	SI.PD	02	SI012	323,119	310,743	2,170	838	Maribor
Pomurska	SI.PM	01	SI011	119,145	120,875	1,337	516	Murska Sobota
Savinjska	SI.SA	04	SI014	259,726	253,574	2,384	921	Celje
Spodnjeposavska	SI.PS	06	SI016	70,167	68,565	885	342	Krško
Zasavska	SI.ZS	05	SI015	44,222	45,436	264	102	Zagorje ob Savi
12 regions				2,050,189	1,964,036	20,273	7,827
Name: Name of region as listed in ISO 3166-2. HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Region numbers assigned by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. Used in the ISO 3166-2 standard until 2002, but no longer in force. NUTS: Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics. Pop-2011: 2011-01-01 census from population registers. Pop-2002: 2002-03-31 census. Area: Source [7]. Capitals: Chief towns; statistical regions have no administrative center.

Postal codes: 

Slovenia uses four-digit postal codes. Slovene addresses can be identified by prefixing the postal codes with "SI-".

Further subdivisions:

See the Communes of Slovenia page.

It appears that after Slovenia became independent in 1991, it had 62 opčine (communes, although the CIA World Factbook described them as pokrajine [provinces]). The number of communes grew to 146 in 1995, and 210 in 2006. There are also several sets of higher-level divisions, which are defined as groups of communes. I felt that over 200 divisions was too long a listing for such a small country, especially since the communes change fairly often. I chose a set of divisions which seem to be in current use, although they may not have a legal basis. There is another set of 58 divisions, intermediate between the statistical regions and the communes, called upravne enote (administrative units).

New proposed NUTS codes for Slovenia were issued on 2004-09-15. They all began with SI00. I don't know whether they were ever actually used. The NUTS codes in effect as of 2007-02 are shown here. There are also two "cohesion regions": Vzhodna Slovenija (East Slovenia, SI01) and Zahodna Slovenija (West Slovenia, SI02). The first four characters of the NUTS code for a statistical region show which cohesion region it belongs to.

Territorial extent: 

The UN LOCODE page  for Slovenia lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Change history: 

1. 1920-07-16: Treaty of Saint-Germain took effect. Most of Coastland province annexed to Venezia region of Italy. Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes created.
2. 1946: Yugoslavia organized as federal republic, with Slovenia as one of its constituent republics.
3. 1947-02-10: Peace treaty signed. Trieste and a surrounding area were made into the Free Territory of Trieste. The rest of Venezia Giulia e Zara region transferred from Italy to Yugoslavia.
4. 1954: Yugoslavia received Zone B of Trieste, part of which (including the port cities of Izola, Koper, and Piran) merged with Slovenia republic. During the 1950s and early '60s, Slovenia was divided into the following counties (population is 1959 estimate):

County	population	Area(km.²)
Celje	197,000	2,314
Gorica	113,000	2,324
Koper	106,000	2,031
Kranj	135,000	2,132
Ljubljana	389,000	4,339
Maribor	345,000	3,208
Murska Sobota	133,000	1,336
Novo Mesto	159,000	2,567
8 counties	1,577,000	20,251

1. 1995-01-01: Slovenia reorganized. The 62 communes were replaced with 146 communes. The latest FIPS list available shows these communes.
2. 1998-03-20: Referendum created 37 new communes.
3. ~1997: two administrative units (Kočevje and Ribnica) were transferred from Osrednjeslovenska region to Dolenjska region.
4. 2004-05-01: Slovenia joined the European Union.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Dolenjska: Jugovzhodna Slovenija (variant)
2. Goriška: Severna Primorska (variant)
3. Ljubljana: Laibach (German); Liubliana (Spanish)
4. Notranjsko-kraška: Kraška, Notranjska (variant)
5. Obalno-kraška: Južna Primorska (variant)
6. Osrednjeslovenska: Ljubljana (variant)
7. Spodnjeposavska: Posavska (variant)

Sources: 

1. [1] Mardešić, Petar, and Zvonimir Dugački. Geografski Atlas Jugoslavije. Zagreb: Znanje, 1961.
2. [2] Mardešić, Petar, and Oto Oppitz. Jugoslavenski Leksikografski Zavod. Zagreb, 1969.
3. [3] Territory and Administration in Europe. Robert Bennett, ed. Pinter Publishers, London and New York, 1989.
4. [4] Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States 1992. Europa Publications Ltd., London, 1992.
5. [5] "Ershiyi (21) Shiji Shijie Diming Lu". Beijing, 2001. This Chinese gazetteer gives the areas of the 147 communes as of 1997. I added the areas of the communes in each region to get region totals.
6. [6] Pecar, Janja: "Regional Aspect of Slovenia’s Development Based on Financial Results of Commercial Companies in 1997", IMAD, December 1998. Found at http://193.2.236.10/meor/ang/regional/pdf/an-pdrp.pdf (retrieved 2001-04-14, now a dead link). Most of the areas from sources [5] and [6] are in pretty close agreement. However, Dolenjska and Osrednjeslovenska are exceptions. According to [5], their areas are 2,774 and 2,466 km.², respectively. [6] puts them at 1,684 and 3,546 km.², respectively. On a map, they appear to be about the same size. On those grounds, the areas from [5] are probably more accurate.
7. [7] "Rapid Reports 2007-02-12: 2. Administrative Territorial Structure", Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia.
8. [8] The Government Communication Office of Slovenia said that the legislature was considering proposals to divide the country into fourteen provinces. (http://www.ukom.gov.si/eng/slovenia/publications/slovenia-news/4479/4482/: dead link, retrieved 2007-03-13).
9. [9] Census 2011 data from Population , Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (retrieved 2014-04-16).