The largest town in the region is Kranj,[1] and other urban centers include Kamnik, Jesenice, Domžale and Škofja Loka.

Its origins as a separate political entity can be traced back to the 17th century, when the Habsburg duchy of Carniola was divided into three administrative districts.

To the north, Upper Carniola is delimited by the Austrian state of Carinthia, the historic Lower Styria (Štajerska) region to the east, and the Slovenian Littoral (Primorska) to the west.

An 1809 atlas shows the border with Lower Carniola to the southeast generally following the line of the Sava, Ljubljanica, Iščica, and Želimeljščica rivers almost to Zidani Most.

It covers most of the province, except for some peripheral areas in south-western and north-western Upper Carniola, and it also extends to the northern suburbs of Ljubljana.

In the extreme south-eastern part of Upper Carniola the Zagorje-Trbovlje subdialect is spoken, which belongs to the Styrian dialect group.

During the late Enlightenment and early Romantic period, many of the most important Slovene authors and philologists came from the region: Jurij Japelj, Anton Tomaž Linhart, Jernej Kopitar, Matija Čop, and Janez Bleiweis.

The poet and journalist Valentin Vodnik, who was born in Šiška, now a suburb of Ljubljana, also had influences of Upper Carniolan dialect.

The poetic language of France Prešeren, the Slovenian national poet, also has many specific Upper Carniolan features, yet the spent most of his life in Ljubljana.