[3][4] It maintains certain specific linguistic, cultural and religious features that differentiate it from other Slovenian traditional regions.

The name Prekmurje literally means 'area beyond the Mur' (prek 'beyond, on the other side' + Mura 'Mur River' + je, a collective suffix).

The current Hungarian name for Prekmurje, Muravidék, dates from the interwar period and is a translation of the Slovenian Murska krajina.

The German-speaking community, which used to be concentrated in three villages near the Austrian border and in Murska Sobota, was either expelled from the area or assimilated after World War II.

Besides a Roman Catholic majority, there is a significant Protestant (mostly Lutheran) minority, concentrated in the hills of the Goričko region, which represents 20 to 25% of the population of Prekmurje.

In 1919, it proclaimed independence as the short-lived Republic of Prekmurje and was subsequently included into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as Yugoslavia).

Although, earlier Slavic settlements had existed in the area, the ancestors of modern Slovenes moved from eastern Alps and settled in Prekmurje after the Franks defeated the Avars during the reign of Charlemagne.

The principality was later dissolved and integrated in the Kingdom of Carantania established by the German Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia.

This political entity in which all the ancestors of modern Slovenes were united under one ruler was soon destroyed by the Hungarian invaders who conquered the Pannonian plain and who incorporated Prekmurje into the Kingdom of Hungary.

The area inhabited by Slovenes shrank to the present extent by the end of the 12th century and has remained stable since.

In the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, during the collapse of the central power in the Kingdom of Hungary, the region was part of the domain of semi-independent oligarch Henrik Kőszegi.

For a short time, Beltinci, under the name Balatin, became the sanjak center of the Ottoman Kanije Province.

In 1918 the Catholic politicians and József Klekl aimed to create an autonomous entity or independent state, with the name Slovenska krajina.

On August 12, 1919, Yugoslav troops took control of the region, and it was incorporated into the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929).

[5] After World War II, the use of written Prekmurje Slovene steeply declined, but it has never been entirely abandoned.

[6][7][8][9] Modern Prekmurje writers, poets, and journalists are continuing the literary tradition of the codified language.

In the 2020s, demands include recognition of Prekmurje Slovene in education, the media, literature, and politics.