To mark the 2000th anniversary of the first urban settlement in the area of today’s Ljubljana – the Roman Emona – the Bank of Slovenia issued a commemorative coin.

With the commemorative coin the Republic of Slovenia is marking an event of great historical, cultural and social importance for Ljubljana and Slovenia. The main feature of the coin is a composition of letters making up the inscription “EMONA” or “AEMONA” and a stylised plan of Emona.
The issuing of the coin is one of the activities of Ljubljana in 2014 and 2015 to celebrate this venerable anniversary. Emona (Colonia Iulia Emona) was a Roman urban settlement in the middle of what is today Ljubljana.

In the first two decades of the 1st century C.E., in the area between the River Ljubljanica and Šiška Hill on the left bank of the river, the Romans built a town with a rectangular layout, enclosed by a stone wall and double moat. Within the wall was a grid of rectangular streets that divided up the space into residential blocks.
Although Emona was damaged by the Huns in the 5th century and later fell into ruin, the original elements of the Roman town and its grid of streets formed the basis for the urban development of modern Ljubljana.

The author of the coin design is Matej Ramšak, the volume of coins issued is 1 million and they were put into circulation on 9 November 2015.