Šmihel (; ) is a

dispersed settlement A dispersed settlement, also known as a scattered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement patterns used by landscape historians to classify rural settlements found in England and other parts of the world. Typically, there are a num ...

in the

Municipality of Nova Gorica The Urban Municipality of Nova Gorica (; ) is a municipality in the traditional region of the Slovene Littoral in western Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the city of Nova Gorica. Nova Gorica became a municipality in 1994. It borders It ...

in western

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

. It is located in the lower

Vipava Valley The Vipava Valley (; , , ) is a valley in the Slovenian Littoral, roughly between the village of Podnanos to the east and the border with Italy to the west. The main towns are Ajdovščina and Vipava. Geography The narrow valley of the Vipav ...

Name

The name of the settlement was changed from ''Sveti Mihael'' (literally, 'Archangel Michael') to ''Šmihel'' in 1955. The name was changed on the basis of the 1948 Law on Names of Settlements and Designations of Squares, Streets, and Buildings as part of efforts by Slovenia's postwar communist government to remove religious elements from toponyms.

Church

The small church, from which the settlement gets its name, is dedicated to

Saint Michael Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second- ...

and the belongs to the

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

Šempas Šempas ( or ; in older sources also ''Šenpas,''Navratil, J. 1894. "Slovenske národne vraže in prazne vére (Dalje)." ''Letopis Matice slovenske'' 138–201, p. 184. , ) is a village in the Vipava Valley in the Municipality of Nova Gorica in we ...

.Roman Catholic Diocese of Koper List of Churches May 2008
/ref>

References

External links

Šmihel on Geopedia
Populated places in the Urban Municipality of Nova Gorica {{NovaGorica-geo-stub