Žumberak or Gorjanci (Slovene) is a range of mountains or hills between Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

 and Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

. The highest peak is Sveta Gera (Trdinov vrh) on the border between Croatia and Slovenia, being 1181 m (3,874.7 ft) tall.

Near the peak, there is a 90 meter high telecommunications tower of the Radio-Television Slovenia

Radiotelevizija Slovenija

Radiotelevizija Slovenija – usually abbreviated to RTV Slovenija – is Slovenia's national public broadcasting organization. Based in the country's capital, Ljubljana, it has regional broadcasting centres in Koper and Maribor and correspondents around Slovenia, Europe and the world...

.

Since 1999, a nature park

Nature park

A nature park is a landscape protected by means of long-term planning, use and agriculture. These valuable landscapes are preserved in their present state and promoted for touristic purposes....

 (Park prirode) Žumberak - Samoborsko gorje covers the area of the mountain on the Croatian side.

History of the region

The isolated region on Croatian side has always had a low population. In 1530, the immigration of Uskok

USKOK

USKOK is a Croatian government institution. It is a State Attorney office specialized in corruption and organized crime.USKOK started work in December 2001...

s started, which lasted until the 17th century, which brought a large population of Štokavian speakers to the region. Žumberak was then part of Austrian Military Frontier

Military Frontier

The Military Frontier was a borderland of Habsburg Austria and later the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which acted as the cordon sanitaire against incursions from the Ottoman Empire...

, created by the Habsburgs to serve as a defensive buffer between their empire and the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. Žumberak itself was an enclave within Banovina and did not directly border the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. The mountain is called Uskokengebirge or Sichelberg in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

.

The region is today the intersection of all three Croatian dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

s. The descendants of Uskoks who are Štokavian speakers are majority in Žumberak. Today there are more Greek Catholic churches in Žumberak than Latin Catholic

Latin Church

The Latin Church is the largest particular church within the Catholic Church. It is a particular church not on the level of the local particular churches known as dioceses or eparchies, but on the level of autonomous ritual churches, of which there are 23, the remaining 22 of which are Eastern...

 churches (approx. 2 to 1).

Žumberak is the site of the Jazovka

Jazovka

Jazovka is a pit in the Žumberak area of Croatia where the bodies of approximately 500 Croatian soldiers and civilians were dumped during and after the Second World War. The first victims were fascist Ustasha Croat soldiers captured by Partisan forces in 1942 in the vicinity of Krašić.Although...

 pit, location of a World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 massacre of retreating Croatian soldiers and civilians by the communist Partisans

Partisans (Yugoslavia)

The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...

.

A military complex near the top of Trdinov vrh, created by the Yugoslav People's Army

Yugoslav People's Army

The Yugoslav People's Army , also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army , was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.-Origins:The origins of the JNA can...

, has been a subject of a dispute between the two new countries since the 1990s. Escalation was prevented due to amicable diplomacy.

The population of about 3,000 people (on the Croatian side) consists mainly of the elderly.