Gornji Petrovci

Gornji Petrovci Občina Gornji Petrovci
—  Town and Municipality  —
Holy Trinity church in Gornji Petrovci
Location of the Municipality of Gornji Petrovci in Slovenia
Gornji Petrovci Location of the Town of Gornji Petrovci in Slovenia
Coordinates: 46°48′N 16°13′E / 46.8°N 16.217°E / 46.8; 16.217Coordinates: 46°48′N 16°13′E / 46.8°N 16.217°E / 46.8; 16.217
Country	Slovenia
Government
- Mayor	Franc Šlihthuber
Area
- Total	66.8 km2 (25.8 sq mi)
Population (2002)[1]
- Total	2,217
- Density	33.2/km2 (86/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+01)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+02)

Gornji Petrovci (Hungarian: Péterhegy) is a town and a municipality in Slovenia. The municipality includes 14 villages, represented in the municipal coat of arms by fourteen simplified blue houses. The shield also includes a heraldic otter holding a golden fish. The municipal holiday is 18 August, chosen as the anniversary of the crash landing of a stratospheric balloon with the Belgian pioneering baloonists Max Cosyns and Nérée van der Elst in 1934.^[2]

The majority of the population of the municipality are Lutherans, making Gornji Petrovci one of the very few Slovenian municipalities with a non-Catholic majority.

There are two churches in the village of Gornji Petrovci. The Roman Catholic Parish Church is dedicated to The Holy Trinity and is a structure that originates in the late 13th century, but was rebuilt on a number of occasions in the following centuries, preserving certain features from each phase. The relatively short nave is Romanesque, with Baroque internal fittings. The sanctuary is Late Gothic.^[3] The local Evangelical church is a large single nave building which is one of the largest Evangelical churches in Prekmurje. It was built in 1804 and renovated in 1894.^[4]

The writer Mátyás Godina and János Hüll, dean of Tótság (Slovenska okroglina), lived and died in the village. The physics teacher and irredentist Sándor Mikola was born here.

References

1. ^ Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, census of 2002
2. ^ Gornji Petrovci Municipality site
3. ^ Slovenian Ministry of Culture register of national heritage reference number 2997
4. ^ Slovenian Ministry of Culture register of national heritage reference number 4148

External links

• Gornji Petrovci at Geopedia