Slovenia: Introduction to Slovenia: Society

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Introduction to Slovenia:

Introduction

Geography and topography

Society

At the end of March 2007 there were 2,013,597 people living in Slovenia. Approximately 50 per cent of the people reside in urban areas and 30 per cent in towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants, whilst the rest live in nearly 6,000 smaller towns and villages. The municipalities of Ljubljana (265,881, 2002 Census), Maribor (110,668), Kranj (51,225), Celje (48,081) and Koper-Capodistria (47,539) are Slovenia’s five largest urban settlements.

The population density currently stands at 98.7 inhabitants per square kilometre, a figure much lower than in the majority of other European states. People have mainly settled the river valleys and transport routes, where long ago Slovene towns began to emerge, whilst the mountainous and forested areas remain unpopulated.

Slovenia’s population is slowly declining and the country has the lowest birth rate both in Europe and the world, although the figure of 18,932 live births in 2006 was the highest in the past decade. The average number of people per household is decreasing (in the last census in 2002 it was only 2.8) and the number of marriages is also falling, whilst the average age of mothers having their first child is increasing - in 2006 it was 28 years. In the 2002 Census almost a half of families with children (49 per cent) had only one child. In 2004 the life expectancy for men was 73.48 years and 81.08 for women, which is approximately three years longer than in the mid 1990s. People living in Slovenia have good education and employment opportunities, and are well educated by all the usual indicators.

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