[notes 2] The term refers to the small southeasternmost area of the former Duchy of Carinthia, which after World War I was allocated to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain.

The region lies in the Karawanks mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps and comprises two spatially divided areas totalling 478 km2 (185 sq mi): All these municipalities border on the Austrian state of Carinthia in the north.

[1] The name derives from the early medieval Slavic principality of Carantania, whose territory stretched from the present-day Austrian state of Carinthia down to the Styrian lands on the Sava river.

The area was part of the Imperial Carinthian duchy established in 976 and ruled by the House of Habsburg from 1335, which in 1867 became a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary.

Upon the Austrian defeat in World War I, the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) in 1919 occupied southern Carinthia.

During the 1941 Balkan Campaign of World War II, the area was annexed by Nazi Germany and put under the administration of the Reichsgau of Carinthia, led by Friedrich Rainer.

Upon the German Instrument of Surrender in May 1945, Yugoslav Partisans entered the region, killing numerous alleged collaborators during the Bleiburg repatriations.

The area around Dravograd (Otiški Vrh, Selovec, Bukovska Vas, Šentjanž) and Prevalje (Leše, Poljana) is the site of several mass graves.

In some areas, up to 40% of the trees are damaged due to heavy sulfur dioxide emissions from the Šoštanj Power Plant and the iron works in Ravne.