Velenje

Velenje
Flag of Velenje Flag
Location of the Municipality of Velenje in Slovenia
Country	Slovenia
Municipality	Velenje
Government
• Mayor	Srečko Meh
Area
• Total	32.2 sq mi (83.5 km2)
Population  (2002)
• Total	33,331
• males	16,659
• female	16,672
Average age	37.34 years
Residential areas	25.45 m2 (273.9 sq ft)/person
Households	11,443
Families	9,659
Website	Official site
Source: Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, census of 2002.

Velenje (German: Wöllan) is a municipality with 33.331 inhabitants in the northeast of Slovenia. Stari Velenje (the old part at the foot of the castle) is mentioned for the first time 1264 and 1374 as small market town and was a center of handicraft and trade. Due to lignite mining, the city expanded especially after World War II. After the death of Yugoslav president for life Tito it was renamed Titovo Velenje in 1981, but the old name was returned to the city in 1991, shortly before Slovenia became independent.

Velenje is the headquarters of Gorenje, a manufacturer of household appliances, and the former hometown of Jolanda Čeplak, a Slovenian middle distance athlete and Olympic bronze medalist.

Towns and villages

Arnače, Bevče, Črnova, Hrastovec, Janškovo selo, Kavče, Laze, Lipje, Lopatnik, Lopatnik pri Velenju, Ložnica, Paka pri Velenju, Paški Kozjak, Pirešica, Plešivec, Podgorje, Podkraj pri Velenju, Prelska, Silova, Šenbric, Škale, Škalske Cirkovce, Šmartinske Cirkovce, Velenje, Vinska Gora

You cannot find Velenje on the globe even if you look for it with a a magnifying glass, and on the European continent it is seen only as a small dot in this wide world. If you take a closer look at this dot, you might discover a piece of Slovenian land – attractive Styrian landscape – which invites you to visit this charming city …

All of you, who are reading this text, are invited to accept our invitation to visit the Velenje basin or rather the valley of Šaleška dolina, as this Styrian part of Slovenian land, surrounded by Smrekovec (1577 m), Paški Kozjak, the Ložnica highlands and the eastern Karavanke mountains, is usually called by its inhabitants. Let us invite you, with pictures and word, to the uraban municipality and the city of Velenje, and to the valley Šaleška dolina – named after the Šalek Castle and nearby settlement Šalek. Today, the grand old ruin of the Šalek Castle, so often depicted by a painter’s inspiration and frequently visited as a place wit H a fine view, has become a symbol of the Šalek spirit. If you come to Velenje from the Koroška (Carinthiahe) side, the ruin of the Šalek Castle bids you welcome, if you come from the Celje region you are greeted by the mighty Velenje Castle, which is situated on the hill overlooking the city, and if you come to Velenje via Škale the Turn Castle welcomes you from its gentle slope. The first thought that comes to mind when you see these three castles. Is this a valley of castles? Is very pertinent, for there are at least dozen more (regretfully in ruins) hidden in the Valley. In its lavish past the Valley was obviously interesting as church building area, with its 26 dominant sacral buildings it somehow deserves to be named the valley of churches. In addition to the many castles and churches, which bear witness to a rich cultural heritage in this area from the Romanesque period on, the creator of the landscape has enabled us to call the Valley the valley of lakes. At first sight you get the impression of a mighty and fabulous world in the Valley and in the city of Velenje. Yet through the centuries this place has slowly and carefully merged with stone and water, as if the grounds of Velenje borough and later luxuriantly grown city were never really left to coincidence, but were built, stone by stone, sometimes white, sometimes black; in mosaic harmony and symbiosis. One of the many landscapes starts with the settlement Šalek: here the valley opens from the narrow part of the Paka river basin into the widened part of the valley. In former times, Paka, flowing in to river Savinja, often flooded and for that reason approximately forty years ago the people of Velenje regulated it themselves, working voluntarily on that and many other occasions. Today, the Paka is connected with the urban part of the valley on its south side. The valley Šaleška dolina is 1 to 2,5 kilometers wide and 8 kilometers long. The amphitheatrically relief of it is due to two tectonic faults, inside which the land between Smrekovec and Paški Kozjak sank and was filled by the Pannonian Sea in ancient times, and then later, in the Early Pliocene, a lake formed. There are layers of clay and coal from that period and their exploitation crucially influenced the re-forming of the landscape. The valley spreads in the east-southeast towards west-northwest; it’s configuration and openness in many respects a great advantage in the development of the Valley area.