Slovenia

The Romans built Emona where Ljubljana stands today. Slavic peoples settled the Alps and the Karst from the sixth century, and for most of the next thousand years the Slovene lands were ruled by the Habsburgs. On the short coast, Piran and Koper belonged for centuries to the Republic of Venice, and their squares, loggias and bell towers are pure Venetian Gothic.

In 1550 Primož Trubar printed the first books in Slovene, and the poet France Prešeren gave the language its literature in the nineteenth century. After the First World War the Slovenes joined the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia. Slovenia became independent in 1991 and joined the European Union in 2004.