Vrhnika is a town and a municipality in Slovenia. It is situated on the Ljubljanica River, 21 km from Ljubljana, in the direction of the Littoral region of Slovenia. In Roman times, Vrhnika was known as Nauportus.
Vrhnika developed in the High Middle Ages, when it was known under its German name Ober Laibach ('Upper Ljubljana'). Its modern Slovenian name is an abbreviation of this old name, meaning "The upper one" or "The one above". Vrhnika became a market town and was considered to be among the wealthiest towns in Carniola , up to the early 18th century, when it started to lose importance. Nevertheless, it remained one of main transportation junctions in Inner Austria, because of its strategic location on the croassroads between the Trieste-Vienna and Rijeka-Klagenfurt trade routes. The development of the town was however strongly damaged by the construction of the Austrian Southern Railway in the 1840s, which bypassed the town. From then on, it started losing importance, becoming a satellite town of Ljubljana, which has remained up to this day.
Vrhnika is the birthplace of one of the most important Slovenian writers, Ivan Cankar and Miha Petrič.
