Northern Thrace in the context of "Sliven"

Burgas (Bulgarian: Бургас, pronounced [burˈɡas] ), sometimes transliterated as Bourgas, is the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the region of Northern Thrace and the fourth-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna, with a population of 210,646 inhabitants, while 226,137 live in its urban area. It is the capital of Burgas Province and an important industrial, transport, cultural and tourist centre.

The city is surrounded by the Burgas Lakes and located at the westernmost point of the Black Sea, at the large Burgas Bay. LUKOIL Neftochim Burgas is the largest oil refinery in southeastern Europe and the largest industrial enterprise. The Port of Burgas is the second largest port in Bulgaria, and Burgas Airport is the second most important in the country. Burgas is the centre of the Bulgarian fishing and fish processing industry.

Thrace (/θreɪs/, thrayss; Bulgarian: Тракия, romanised: Trakiya; Greek: Θράκη, romanised: Thráki; Turkish: Trakya) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea to the east, it comprises present-day southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), and the European part of Turkey (East Thrace). Lands also inhabited by ancient Thracians extended in the north to modern-day Northern Bulgaria and Romania and to the west into Macedonia.

Western Thrace (Greek: Δυτική Θράκη, IPA: [ðitiˈci ˈθɾaci]), also known as Greek Thrace or Aegean Thrace, is a geographical and historical region of Greece, between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country; East Thrace, which lies east of the river Evros, forms the European part of Turkey, and the area to the north, in Bulgaria, is known as Northern Thrace.

Inhabited since Paleolithic times, it has been under the political, cultural and linguistic influence of the Greek world since the classical era; Greeks from the Aegean islands extensively colonized the region (especially the coastal part) and built prosperous cities such as Abdera (home of Democritus, the 5th-century BC philosopher who developed an atomic particle theory, and of Protagoras, a leading sophist) and Sale (near present-day Alexandroupolis). Under the Byzantine Empire, Western Thrace benefited from its position close to the imperial heartland and became a center of medieval Greek commerce and culture; later, under the Ottoman Empire, a number of Muslims settled there, marking the birth of the Muslim minority of Greece.

Thracians or Thracian Bulgarians (Bulgarian: Тракийски българи or Тракийци) are a regional, ethnographic group of ethnic Bulgarians, inhabiting or native to Thrace. Today, the larger part of this population is concentrated in Northern Thrace, but much is spread across the whole of Bulgaria and the diaspora.

Until the beginning of the twentieth century the Thracian Bulgarians were scattered in the whole of Thrace, then part of the Ottoman Empire. After the persecutions during the Preobrazhenie Uprising and the ethnic cleansing, caused to the Bulgarian population in Eastern Thrace after the Second Balkan War, these people were expelled from the area. After World War I, Bulgaria was required to cede Western Thrace to Greece. A whole population of Bulgarians in Western Thrace was expelled into Bulgaria-controlled Northern Thrace. This was followed by a further population exchange between Bulgaria and Greece (under the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine), which radically changed the demographics of the region toward increased ethnic homogenization within the territories each respective country ultimately was awarded. At this period the Bulgarian Communist Party was compelled by Comintern to accept the formation of a new Thracian nation on the base of this people in order to include them in a new separate Thracian state, as a part of a future Balkan Communist Federation.

42°15′N 26°0′E / 42.250°N 26.000°E / 42.250; 26.000

The Upper Thracian Plain (Bulgarian: Горнотракийска низина, Gornotrakiyska nizina) constitutes the northern part of the historical region of Thrace. It is located in southern Bulgaria, between Sredna Gora mountains to the north and west, a secondary mountain chain parallel to the main Balkan Mountains; the Rhodopes, Sakar and Strandzha to the south; and the Black Sea to the east. A fertile agricultural region, the Upper Thracian Plain proper has an area of 16,032 square kilometres (6,190 sq mi) and an average elevation of 168 metres (551 ft). The plain is part of Northern Thrace. The climate is transitional continental. The highest temperature recorded in Bulgaria occurred here: it was 45.2 °C (113.4 °F) at Sadovo in 1916. The precipitation is 550 millimetres (22 in) a year. Important rivers are the Maritsa and its tributaries, Arda, Tundzha, Stryama, Topolnitsa, and Vacha. Important cities include Plovdiv, Burgas, Stara Zagora, Pazardzhik, Asenovgrad, Haskovo, Yambol and Sliven.

Haskovo (Bulgarian: Хасково [ˈxaskovo]) is a city in the region of Northern Thrace in southern Bulgaria and the administrative centre of the Haskovo Province, not far from the borders with Greece and Turkey. According to Operative Program Regional Development of Bulgaria, the urban area of Haskovo is the seventh largest in Bulgaria and has a population of 184,731 inhabitants. Haskovo has a population of 64,564 as of 2022, making it Bulgaria's 12th largest city.

The first settlement found in Haskovo is from circa 5000 BC. Haskovo celebrated its 1,000th anniversary as a town in 1985. To mark the event, a new clock tower was erected in the centre of the town.