page_title: Burgas
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Burgas / History
context_page_description: Burgas, 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 in Bulgaria after Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna, with a population of 202,694 inhabitants, while 277,922 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. The LUKOIL Neftochim Burgas is the largest oil refinery in southeastern Europe and the largest industrial enterprise. The Port of Burgas is the 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.
context_section_description: The earliest signs of life in the region date back 3000 years, to the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. The favorable conditions on the fertile plain, around the sea, have brought people here from early antiquity. The biggest mark was left by the Thracians who made the region rich in archaeological finds (from around 4th c. BC). This includes their sanctuary at Beglik Tash along the south coast and a burial mound near Sunny Beach. They built the mineral baths of Aquae Calidae and the fortress Tyrsis.
  Under Darius I became part of the Achaemenid Empire, before the Odrysian kingdom was established. Greeks from Apollonia built a marketplace to trade with the Thracians, in what is now the neighborhood of Pobeda.
  During the rule of the Ancient Romans, near Burgas, Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium (Deultum, Dibaltum, or Develtum) was established as a military colony for veterans by Vespasian in AD 70. The Romans built this colonia on the main road Via Pontica. It was the second most important city in the province Haemimontus.
  In 376 the Goths destroyed an elite Roman company near Develtum at the Battle of Dibaltum.
caption: Alexander Severus coin from the Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium
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