Lower Sava Valley
The Lower Sava Valley is a region in southeastern Slovenia on the border with Croatia. It has three major urban centres: Brežice, Krško, and Sevnica. Its borders are almost identical with those of the Lower Sava Statistical Region.
It extends along the lower part of the Sava River, from the town of Krško downstream to the international border. With an area of 885 km2 and a 2003 population of 70,262, it is Slovenia's second-smallest region and one of its least densely populated ones. The neighbouring regions are the Savinja region to the north, the Central Sava Valley to the west, and Lower Carniola to the south. The constituent municipalities are Krško, Brežice, Sevnica, Kostanjevica na Krki, Radeče, and Bistrica ob Sotli.
The Lower Sava Valley is a popular tourist destination, prized for its rich cultural heritage, thermal spas, high-quality wines, and well-developed network of walking and riding trails, golf courses, and health resorts.
Physiography and geology
Slovenia's Lower Sava Valley falls within the easternmost part of the Krško–Samobor Plain, the western segment of the broader Sava Plain physico-geographical unit. The Sava Plain is divided by two major tectonic constrictions—the Podsused Gate near Zagreb and the Brod Gate near Slavonski Brod—into three sub-regions: the Krško–Samobor Plain, the Upper Sava Plain, and the Lower Sava Plain. The Krško–Samobor Plain extends from Krško downstream to the Podsused Gate and is underlain exclusively by Holocene alluvial sediments deposited by a gently meandering river. Its flat relief results from repeated sedimentation and is bounded by fault-controlled uplands to the north and south.Relief in this part of the valley reflects a Holocene evolution dominated by neotectonic movements, fluvial processes, local slope processes, and minor aeolian activity. The plain's surface roughness coefficients, as mapped via QGIS "Roughness" analysis, fall below 5 m/m, confirming a very low-relief floodplain environment.