Laško

Laško (; ) is a spa town in eastern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Laško. The area is part of the traditional region of Styria. The municipality is now included in the Savinja Statistical Region. The town is located at the foothills of Hum Hill on the Savinja River. It was first mentioned in written documents dating to 1227 and was granted town privileges in 1927. It is known to have been settled since the Iron Age and Roman archaeological finds are common in the area, though the precise location of the Roman settlement is not known. Today the town is best known for its annual Festival of Beer & Flowers (Pivo - Cvetje) and the local Laško Brewery, the largest brewery in the country. In 2010, Laško was heavily affected by flooding. The town's coat of arms depicts three white fleurs-de-lis on a blue field.

==Name== Laško was attested in written sources in 1145 under the German name Tyver (and as Tyvre in 1182, Tyuer in 1342, and Tyffer in 1461). The name de Lasca was attested in 1483. The Slovene name is derived from *Laško selo 'Vlach village'; the first element comes from Slavic *Vȍlxъ, referring to the Romanized Celtic population or to other Romance speakers. The Slovene name presumably refers to pre-Slavic ethnic settlement or to medieval settlers from a Romance-speaking area, and it predates the arrival of Italian settlers from the Bergamo area that arrived in Laško after 1554. The German name Tüffer is believed to derive from Slavic deber 'river strait', referring to the narrowing of the Savinja River. This name is still found in the village of Debro, which lies immediately upriver from Laško and was once known in German as Ober Tüffer (literally, 'upper Tüffer').