and mountains, here with higher summer rainfall.
About half of the country (11,691 km ²) is covered by forests, making Slovenia the third most forested country in Europe, after Finland and Sweden. There are still remnants of original forest, the largest in the area of Ko?evje. In turn, the pastoral areas occupy 5593 km ² and fields and gardens 2.471 km ². There are 363 km ² of orchards and 216 km ² of vineyards.
As of 2007, Slovenia has a population of 2,009,000 inhabitants, although its population is declining slowly, almost in equilibrium, since in 2005 it was still 2000 more than 2,011,614 inhabitants today. Life expectancy is 76.5 years. 99.7% of the population is literate. The average number of children per woman is only 1.26 which is causing their population is reduced by 0.06% each year.
Novo Mesto, the largest population in the region of Jugovzhodna Slovenija (Slovenia southeast)
With 95 inhabitants / km ², Slovenia is in the last places among European countries in population density (320/km ² compared with those for the Netherlands or 195/km ² for Italy). Approximately 50% of the total population lives in urban areas.
The official language is Slovene, which is in a group of South Slavic languages. The Hungarian and Italian enjoy the status of official language in nationally mixed regions along the Italian and Hungarian border.
The predominant religion in Slovenia is Roman Catholic, with 57.8% of the population professed that creed, Muslim 2.4%, the Eastern Orthodox Church, with 2.3%, Protestant, 0 9%, others 3.7%; agnostics and atheists 10,1% and 22.8% said no.
The ethnic composition consists of: Slovenian 87.8%, Serbs 2.4%, Croats 2.8%, Bosnian 1.4%.