Location:
The town of Sozopol has population of about 7,000 people and is situated 31km south of Bourgas. The town lies on a small rocky peninsula in the farthest southern part of the Bourgas Bay. A one hundred-metre long strip of land connects it to the mainland. From 1925 on, the town has expanded in the direction of the Harmanite Area (the so-called ''new town'').
About the resort:
The earliest settlements in the area belonged to the Thracian tribes of Nipsei and Skirimian. In the 7th century BC Greek colonisers settled there and called the town after their god of Apollo, Apolonia. To the honour of Apollo, the construction of a thirteen-metre high bronze statute of the god was carried out by a sculptor named Kalamis. Apolonia developed mainly as a trading centre for honey, wax, corn, wine, olive oil, olives, textiles, jewellery, and pottery. Apolonia was frequently in economic and political disputes, including occasional wars, with the Doric inhabitants of Messembria (present-day Nessebar). Apolonia was included in the territory of the Macedonian State at the time of Alexander the Great. It was frequently subject to, but warded off, invasions of Nomads. The town fell under Roman domination in the 1st century BC after it was severely ruined by the armies of Marcus Lucul. The latter sent the famous statute of Apollo to Rome as a symbol of his victory. Yet Romans quickly restored the ruins, built new temples. Already in the 6th century BC Apolonia minted coins of its own. The high level of cultural development of the town at that time is testified by items found in its necropolis - ceramics, vases made of Egyptian glass, silver and golden decorations. The upturn of the town was so great, that Sozopol managed to establish its own colony, Anhialo (present-day Pomorie).
