Cerovec pri Šmarju () 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 Šmarje pri Jelšah The Municipality of Šmarje pri Jelšah (; ) is a municipality in the traditional region of Lower Styria, Styria in northeastern Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Šmarje pri Jelšah. Šmarje pri Jelšah became a municipality ...

in eastern

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 lies in the

Kozje Kozje (, ) is a small town in eastern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Kozje. The settlement of Kozje lies in the centre of the municipality, from Celje, from Ljubljana, and from Rogaška Slatina. It is the main settlement of the ...

region () in the hills to the south of Šmarje pri Jelšah. The area is part of the traditional region of

Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...

. The municipality is now included in the

Savinja Statistical Region The Savinja Statistical Region () is a Statistical regions of Slovenia, statistical region in Slovenia. The largest town in the region is Celje. It is named after the Savinja River. The region is very diverse in natural geography; it mainly compr ...

Name

Like other settlements that share the common name ''Cerovec'' (e.g., ''

Cerovec pri Črešnjevcu Cerovec pri Črešnjevcu () is a settlement in the Municipality of Semič in southeastern Slovenia. The area is part of the historical region of Lower Carniola and the municipality is now included in the Southeast Slovenia Statistical Region The ...

'', '' Cerovec pod Bočem'', '' Veliki Cerovec'', etc.), the name is derived from the Slovene common noun ''cer'' '

Turkey oak Turkey oak is a common name for several species of oaks and may refer to: *''Quercus cerris'', native to southeastern Europe and Asia Minor *''Quercus laevis ''Quercus laevis'', the turkey oak, is a member of the red oak group of oaks. It is na ...

' and originally refers to the local vegetation. The name of the settlement was changed from ''Cerovec'' to ''Cerovec pri Šmarju'' (literally, 'Cerovec near Šmarje') in 1955.

Mass graves

Cerovec pri Šmarju is the site of two

mass graves A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of exec ...

from the period immediately after the Second World War. They both contain the remains of an unknown number of local Slovene civilians from the Šmarje pri Jelšah area that were murdered after the war. The Kolen Cave Mass Grave () is located on the northeast edge of a meadow next to the woods, 290 m north of the road from

Šmarje pri Jelšah Šmarje pri Jelšah (; ''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 4: ''Štajersko''. 1904. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 62.) is a town in eastern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Š ...

, near the Mlinarič farm (Kamenik no. 8). The Pond Mass Grave () is located in a meadow that was turned into a pond after the war.

References

External links

Cerovec pri Šmarju on Geopedia
Populated places in the Municipality of Šmarje pri Jelšah {{ŠmarjepriJelšah-geo-stub