The Geographical institute was founded in 1946 by the Slovenian academy of sciences and arts, and in 1976 it was named after the greatest Slovenian geographer, 
academician Anton Melik. Since 1981, the Institute has been one of the constituent members of the Scientific research centre of the Slovenian academy of sciences 
and arts. Until 1992 the Institute was mainly engaged with researching glaciers, glacial and fluvial transformation of the land surface, flooded areas, natural 
disasters, mountain farms in Slovenia and social geography. But since 1993 the Institute's main task has been to conduct geographical researches of Slovenia 
and its landscapes and to prepare basic geographical texts on Slovenia. Research is mostly directed towards physical, social and regional geography, environmental 
protection and thematic cartography.   
  
Today it has eight organization units: the Department of physical geography, the Department of social geography the Department of regional geography, 
the Department of natural disasters, the Department of geographical information system, the Department of thematic cartography, Department of Environmental 
Protection, Geographical museum, and Geographical library.  
  
The Institute publishes three scientific publications. Geografija Slovenije (Geography of Slovenia) is a series of books appears in Slovenian once or 
twice a year. Acta geographica Slovenica/Geografski zbornik is a review published twice a year in English and Slovenian. The articles can be downloaded on 
the computer in either Slovenian or English from the institute homepage (http://www.zrc-sazu.si/gi/publications. ... Geografski informacijski sistemi 
v Sloveniji (Geographical information systems in Slovenia) is a bulletin published every second (even) year in Slovenian. Altogether in 2004, 22 researchers 
published over 120 papers, gave almost a hundred lectures and reports, and took near twenty study trips abroad.  
http://www.zrc-sazu.si/gi/research.htm