Green Belt Europe

Borders separate — Nature unites

Downloads Interreg-Project finished 2008

Austria - Slovenia

The Green Belt between Austria and Slovenia extends from the Pannonic gentle hill regions at the border triangle Austria-Hungary-Slovenia to the Alpine regions of the Eastern Alps. The trilateral nature park Raab-Oerseg-Goricko shows a traditional cultural landscape with a mosaic of small fields, orchards, vine-yards, meadows and streams. The river Mura forms the border for a short segment. Pohorje is a mountain region with many streams and moors at the plateau. The Green Belt Austria - Slovenia contains the Alpine regions Kamik - Savinska Alps with the picturesque Logarska valley and the Rinka cascade, Karavanke with its beautiful and diverse daffodil meadows threatened by afforestation and scrub encroachment, the Julian Alps (called after the Julian family ruling parts of the southern Alps) and the transition to the Dinaric Mountains, formed by the Trnovo Forest and the Sneznik-Pivka and Javorniki Mountains. The borders between Austria and Slovenia have changed during the centuries. Between 630 and 1050 AD the region of Carinthia, Styria and Carniola was united in the Slavic duchy Carantania.The region was dominated by different rulers (Bavarians, Franconians, Bohemians, Habsburg monarchy), until from the 19th century the Slovenians started to demand for equal political and cultural rights. In 1918 the State of Serbians, Croatians and Slovenians was proclaimed. Slovenia lost its coastal provinces to Italy, which was fixed in the Rapallo Treaty 1920. 1929 the Kingdom Yugoslavia was proclaimed. In 1941 Slovenia was occupied by Germany, Italy and Hungary. In 1945 the Democratic, later Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was founded by Tito. Slovenia was the most prosperous province. Tito's policy of non-alignment, federality and lightened economic control gave Yugoslavia a special position among the socialist states. The border was less protected than other Iron Curtain segments: there was no barbed wire or mine fields.

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Green Belt Europe