It was discovered by Croatian astronomer Korado Korlević at Višnjan Observatory, Croatia, on 23 October 1998.
Mali Lošinj orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.9–3.1 AU once every 5 years and 2 months (1,887 days).
[1] The first used precovery was obtained at Goethe Link Observatory in 1962, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 36 years prior to its discovery.
[3][8] In September 2013, photometric observations at the Palomar Transient Factory in California gave a rotational lightcurve that showed a period of 240.5115 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.48 in magnitude (U=2).
The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 15 December 2005 (M.P.C.