Sliven Province

Coordinates: 42°10′N 24°45′E / 42.167°N 24.750°E / 42.167; 24.750

Sliven Province (Bulgarian: Област Сливен Oblast Sliven, former name Sliven okrug) is a province in southeastern Bulgaria, named after its administrative and industrial centre — the city of Sliven. It embraces a territory of 3,544.1 km² that is divided into four municipalities, with a total population, as of December 2009, of 204,887 inhabitants and 1 Dinko Karavastev.

Municipalities

The Sliven province contains four municipalities. The following table shows the names of each municipality in English and Cyrillic, the main town or village (towns are shown in bold), and the population of each as of December 2009.

Main city

Sliven is situated at the foot of the unique rock massif "Sinite Kamani" (The Blue Rocks), very close to mineral springs. The town is famous for its clean fresh air, clean water sources, mild winter and cool summer.

Sliven is the only Bulgarian town that has never changed its Slavonic name, though it is one of the oldest settlements in Europe. Here lived Thracians, Romans, Slavs, and Ancient Greeks. The first Roman settlement on this place, Tuida (3rd century BC), was a famous trade centre. Sliven was mentioned as a big town for the first time in 1153 by the Arab traveler Idrisi.

Sliven

Sliven (Bulgarian: Сливен) is the eighth-largest city in Bulgaria and the administrative and industrial centre of Sliven Province and municipality.

Sliven is famous for its Bulgarian Haiduts who fought against the Ottoman Turks in the 19th century and is known as the "City of the 100 Voyvodi", a Voyvoda being a leader of Haiduts.

The famous rocky massif Sinite Kamani (Сините камъни, "The Blue Rocks") and the associated national park, the fresh air and the mineral springs offer diverse opportunities for leisure and tourism. Investors are exploring the opportunity to use the famous local wind (Bora) for the production of electricity.

Another point of interest and a major symbol of the city as featured on the coat of arms, is over thousand-year-old Stariyat Briast (Старият Бряст, "The Old Elm"), a huge Smooth-leaved Elm in the center of the city. In times of the Ottoman rule Turkish officials used to hang Bulgarian revolutionaries on it. Today the city is helping the tree live on by frequent evaluations and reinforcing its base. It was elected Bulgarian tree of the year in 2013. On 19th of March 2014 the results of online poll were revealed at a ceremony in the European Parliament. The Old Elm was voted European tree of the year 2014.