Geography of Slovenia 3 : Dinarska Slovenia

Today's theme is Dinarska Slovenia region. The region is the southern Slovenia part and extends from west to east. The region contains a lot of limestone and dolomite, thus it is seen many karst features.  The region could be separated low and high areas. Low area calls Nizke dinarske planote, while high area calls Visoke dinarske planote. Low part is marked by light green, while high parts is marked by dark green. 

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Feature1: Karst landscape

Slovenia has a lot of karst landscapes and its features in the land, but especially, Dinarska Slovenia is a famous region for karst landscape. 

Karst landscape is created basically, by dissolving limestone by chemical reaction. Water does not keep on the surface, but goes down to the underground. Water goes though limestone or dolomite, and cracks them, then later create caves slowly. 

Rainwater and other water on the air cause chemical reaction with CO2 on the ground. As the result of that carbonic acid is created. Carbon acid dissolves limestones. It means that carbon acid dissolves minerals in limestones. Then, dissolved mineral becomes diposited  (it calls Siga or Speleothem) underground of the karst region.

Siga or Speleothem created slim and long stones in the caves.


One of stones grows from ceiling, which calls Stalactite.

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There are stone, calls  Stalagmiti which grows from the floor.

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In the caves we can see many shapes of stones. Some of theme looks some animals, others look like some food, so we will never bored in the caves.   Dinarska region has famous coves for tourists, but also has many small caves.

Feature 2:  Intermittent lake 

Karst region's feature is not only the caves, but also intermittent lake.  That lake disappear  in the summer but when rainy season comes again appear on the surface. Why it happens?

First of all, the bottom of land is filled with impermeable dolomite and cay.

River flows on the surface, but gradually the water flows down to sinkholes. However, when rain season comes in the karst region, river water in sinkholes around plateaus, again flows on the surface. Then, the water creates the intermittent lake in the end. At that time the land of lake's situation is like flooding. During summer water evaporates, thus we can not see the lake, then that place covers by green grasses.

Cerkniško Jezero is widely known in the world as the big intermittent lake. The picture below is the summer season.

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The picture above is flooding version ;) Nature creates amazing view as always.

Feature3: Two climates 

Dinarska region has continental climate, but high parts of dinarska region, which is Snežnik and Trnovo region, are alpine climate. As you guess, temperature changes often in alpine climate regions.

Wet air comes for the west, thus Western high dianrska region is the most wettish part in Slovenia, while eastern region has less precipitation.

Feature4: Population and Economy

In fact, high parts of western Dinarska region has the most less populated region in Slovenia. Because of unstable climate, bad soil, and covering forests,  people moved to other region in Slovenia. Compare to the high parts of Dinarska region, the low parts of Dinarska region has much populated because there are rich soil and stable climate, and developed transportation. 

In the high parts of Dinarska region, the forest industry was active. However, today, most of that industry is closed, so many people became unemployment. In the low parts of Dinarska region has rich soil so agriculture and wine making are still active. Bela Krajina is famous for wine.

Novo Mesto, in the low parts of Dinarska region, is the most developed industrial town in the low parts of Dinarka region. There is automobile factory for Renault. Between Novo Mesto and Ljubljana takes  40 min by car, thus it is understandable many people moved to Novo Mesto. 

Conclusion..

Dinarska region's the biggest feature is the karst feature. Actually Postojna cave is in the Dinarska region. Unfortunately, the forest industry is closed now, but still, you can see a lot of handcrafted wooden goods in the shop. Probably its the best for souvenir!  When you see wooden goods, I hope you will remember the Dinarska region.

写真

1. Živim v Sloveniji p117
2. https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalaktit#/media/File:Stalactites_-_Treak_Cliff_Cavern.jp
3. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Coves_d%27Art%C3%A0_05.jpg
4. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/SlikaCerkniskoJezeroSuho.jpg
5. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/2014_Cerni%C5%A1ko_jezero_Slovenia.jp
6.