Litija (Littai ) is a town in the Litija Basin in central Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Litija. It is located in the valley of the Sava River, east of the capital Ljubljana, in the traditional region of Upper Carniola. The entire municipality is now included in the Central Sava Statistical Region; until January 2014 it was part of the Central Slovenia Statistical Region. The town is home to about 6,500 people.
Litija was mentioned in written documents in 1256 as apud Litigiam and apud Lvtyam (and as Lutya in 1363, Littai in 1431, Luttey in 1444, and propre Lutiam in 1480). Medieval transcriptions indicate that the name was originally *Ljutija, derived from *Ľutoviďa (vьsь) (literally, 'Ľutovidъ's village'). Suggestions that -ija is a suffix or that the name is derived from German Lutte '(mining) drain' are less likely. Other pseudoetymologies include Johann Weikhard von Valvasor's suggestion that the name evolved from litus, the Latin word for 'riverbank'. The town was officially known as Littai in German until 1918.
