Slovenj Gradec
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Template:Urban municipality of Slovenia Slovenj Gradec (German: Windischgrätz, which means Slovenian Graz) is a small city and a municipality in the Styria region of northern Slovenia. The city is located around 45 km west of Maribor and 65 km northeast of Ljubljana.
Historically, Slovenj Gradec is part of the traditional province of Lower Styria.
Between mid 19th Century and 1918, the town was a German-speaking island in a Slovene-speking area. In the 1880 census, the municipality of Slovenj Gradec was 75-percent German-speaking and 25-percent Slovene-speaking. After the end of the World War I, many of the local Ethnic Germans left to Austria; those that remained were gradually assimilated to the Slovene-speking majority. After World War II, all remaining Ethnic Germans were expelled from Yugoslavia, thus Slovenj Gradec lost its traditional presence of German speakers.
In 1860 Hugo Wolf, a composer, was born here--his birthplace is now a music school. Other important structures near his birthplace include the parish church on the main square, which is a gothic chapel with frescos from the middle of the 15th century. In 2003, an acheological excavation uncovered the ruins of the oldest church in all of Carinthia, which originates from the Carolingian period.
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- The information in this article is based on and translated from that found in its German equivalent.