(Picture) Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak
Thrace (, , Attic Greek: , Thrāíkē or , Thrēíkē , , ) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. Today the name Thrace designates a region spread over southern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), and European Turkey (Eastern Thrace). Thrace borders on three seas: the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara. In Turkey, it is also called Rumeli.

The historical boundaries of Thrace have varied. Ancient Thrace (i.e. the territory where ethnic Thracians lived) included present day Bulgaria, European Turkey, north-eastern Greece and parts of eastern Serbia and eastern Republic of Macedonia. Its boundaries were between the Danube River to the north and the Aegean Sea to the south, to the east - the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara and on the west to the Axius. Thracian troops were known to accompany neighboring ruler Alexander the Great, when he crossed the Hellespont which abuts 'Thracia' and took on the Persian Empire of the day. The Roman province of Thrace was somewhat smaller, having the same eastern maritime limits and being bounded on the north by the Balkan Mountains; the Roman province extended west only to the Mesta River.

Picture of Thraciae veteris typvs.

Picture of Classical Thrace and environs, from Alexander G. Findlay's Classical Atlas to Illustrate Ancient Geography, New York, 1849

• thrace - Ancient history
  • The indigenous population of Thrace was a people called, simply, the Thracians.
• thrace - Culture
  • (Picture) Coat of Arms of Roman (Byzantine) Thrace (Stemmatographia from 1741)
• thrace - Medieval history
  • By the mid 5th century, as the Roman Empire began to crumble, Thracia fell from the authority of Rome and into the hands of Germanic tribal rulers. With the fall of Rome, Thracia turned into a battleground territory for the better part of the next 1,000 years. The true successor of the Roman Empire in the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, retained control over Thrace until the beginning of the 9th century when most of the region was incorporated into Bulgaria. Byzantium regained Thrace in 972 only to lose it again to the Bulgarians at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, the region oscillated between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire. In 1265 the area suffered a mongol raid from Golden Horde, led by Nogai Khan. In 1352, the Ottoman Turks conducted their first incursion into the region subduing it completely within a matter of two decades and ruling over it for five centuries.
• thrace - Modern history
  • (Picture) Proposal to cede Eastern Thrace to Greece during World War I. This photocopy came from a larger, color map.
• thrace - Cities of Thrace
  • • • thrace - Cities of Thrace - Bulgaria
        • • Ahtopol (Greek Αγαθούπολη /Agathopolis/, Turkish Atebuli )
• thrace - Famous Thracians
  • Some of these individuals were ethnically Thracian
• thrace - See also
  • • Odrysian kingdom
• thrace - Sources
  • • Hoddinott, R.F., The Thracians , 1981.
• thrace - External links
  • • Ethnological Museum of Thrace, comprehensive website on Thracian history and culture.
• thrace - Related topics