Plovdiv

Plovdiv (Bulgarian: Пловдив) is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after the capital Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants as of February, 2011. It is the administrative center of Plovdiv Province and the municipalities of the City of Plovdiv, Maritsa municipality and Rodopi municipality, whose municipal body had a population of 403,153 inhabitants as of February 2011. It is an important economic, transport, cultural and educational center, as well as the second-largest city in the historical international region of Thrace after Istanbul. It is the tenth-largest city in the Balkans after Istanbul, Athens, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia, Thessaloniki, Zagreb, Skopje and Tirana.