Europe's oldest continuously inhabited city — Roman theatre ruins, Ottoman mosques, and Bulgaria's liveliest arts district
Plovdiv (population 350,000, Bulgaria's second city) is often cited as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe — settled since at least 4000 BCE, it has been Thracian, Macedonian, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Bulgarian without ever being fully abandoned. The Old Town (Stария Град) sits atop three of the city's six hills, preserving a remarkable concentration of National Revival architecture (19th-century Bulgarian vernacular houses with projecting upper floors and vivid colour). The Kapana ('The Trap') arts district — a dense grid of cobblestone lanes just below the Old To…
Plovdiv's recorded history begins with the Thracian settlement of Eumolpias around 4000 BCE; Philip II of Macedon captured and renamed it Philippopolis in 342 BCE. The Romans made it the capital of Thrace Province — the 2nd-century Roman theatre (capacity 6,000, still used for concerts) and Roman Stadium (visible through the floor of a shopping centre on the main pedestrian street) are the most remarkable physical survivals. The Ottoman period (1364–1878) left the Dzhumaya Mosque and the Covered Bazaar; Bulgarian independence in 1878 produced the National Revival houses of the Old Town.