The Municipality of Grosuplje

Grosuplje is the administrative and commercial centre of the municipality and the hub of its transport and communications. The town was first mentioned in 1136. The origins of the name of the settlement have not yet been researched, though numerous suggestions exist, some more serious than others.

Grosuplje grew from a small village into a rapidly developing market town after the construction of the railway in 1893.

It experienced its greatest growth after the Second World War when it began to industrialise. The number of inhabitants quintupled over a period of twenty years. Grosuplje has a pleasant location just fifteen kilometres from Ljubljana and has good prospects for further development. Its metal, provisions, timber and construction industries provide a living for approximately 4,500 inhabitants.

Grosuplje was once famous for its textile industry, and later for a large construction company. Today it boasts many smaller family-run concerns and environmentally friendly manufacturing plants, producing, most notably, equipment for the catering trade.

The building of the motorway and other national and local infrastructure has led to a great increase in interest in the building of new housing, the relocation of activities and the construction of new manufacturing plants. On the southern and western edges of the town ‘commercial zones’ are being developed which will potentially provide jobs for those residents of Grosuplje who currently commute to Ljubljana every day. To the north an increasing number of family houses are planned.

Smarje is the second largest town in the municipality of Grosuplje, and its historical and cultural centre. A town with this name grew up around the year 1000 on the foundations of a fortified settlement from Roman times. It was a parish centre. At the end of the fifteenth century walls and defensive towers were built to protect the town from the Turks. ‘Turncek’, as it is known, is still preserved today. As early as 1504 it housed one of the first elementary schools in Slovenia.

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Near Smarje is an Iron Age settlement and fort, on Magdalenska Gora, where the settlers’ culture reached its peak from the sixth to fourth centuries BC.

The whole of the Grosuplje plain is dominated by the Church of Saint Nicholas, famous for the best-preserved tabor (an enclosing wall built as a defence against the Turks) in Slovenia, currently undergoing restoration. When work is complete this will offer an insight into genuine rural fortified architecture. Close by the Tabor Church is the cave known alternatively as Zupanova Jama or Taborska Jama. Part of the cave system of this beautiful karstic feature is open to visitors.

Radensko Polje is the smallest karst polje in Slovenia, with all the characteristic karstic phenomena. Water usually disappears underground through the various ‘springs’ which cover the entire polje. If there is too much water it disappears underground via swallow holes. During droughts it is possible to follow the underground course of the water in the Zatocne Jame caves for a considerable distance in the direction of the source of the Krka river.

Because of its natural features Radensko Polje is due to become a landscape park and a centre for tourism south of Grosuplje.