Nova Gorica is a planned town, built according to the principles of modernist architecture after 1947, when the Paris Peace Treaty established a new border between Yugoslavia and Italy, leaving nearby Gorizia outside the borders of Yugoslavia and thus cutting off the Soča Valley, the Vipava Valley, the Gorizia Hills and the northwestern Karst Plateau from their traditional regional urban centre.

[3] since May 2011, Nova Gorica has been joined with Gorizia and Šempeter-Vrtojba in a common trans-border metropolitan zone, administered by a joint administration board.

In order to overcome this problem, the Communist authorities of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia decided to build a new settlement that would connect these suburbs into a new urban space.

The city was formally established as an urban municipality in 1952, incorporating the older settlements of Solkan, Kromberk and Rožna Dolina, which thus became, somewhat reluctantly, suburbs of Nova Gorica.

This was however a purely symbolic act that only affected the official statistics on population: because of this, Nova Gorica dropped from the list of 10 largest towns in Slovenia.

Nova Gorica and Gorizia won their joint bid to be designated as European Capital of Culture in 2025; the other city selected for that year is Chemnitz, Germany.

To the south of the town stands Kostanjevica Hill, home to the Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady and a 17th-century Franciscan monastery with rich treasures from the past.

The mountain top is home to a magnificent basilica, where concerts are occasionally held, a Franciscan monastery, and a museum of the Battles of the Isonzo.