Coming from the past - going to the future
Yambol is a city in southeastern Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Yambol Province. It lies on both banks of the Tundzha in the historical region of Thrace. Today, the town has 85,966 inhabitants as of 2006.
Although the
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surrounding area has been inhabited since the Neolithic and was the location of the Thracian royal city of Cabyle (later conquered by Philip II of Macedon and the Romans, but destroyed by the Avars in 583), what is today Yambol was founded by Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293 as Diospolis (’city of Zeus’). The name later evolved through Diampolis and Diamboli to become Yambol.
History
As the Slavs and Bulgars arrived in the Balkans in the Middle Ages, the fortress was contested by the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantines until 1373, when it fell to the Ottomans after a prolonged siege.
Yambol (Ottoman Turkish Yanbolu) was an important centre of the Ottoman Empire until liberated by Russian forces in January 1878 to become part of Eastern Rumelia and later Bulgaria after the Unification in 1886.
The predominant religion is Eastern Orthodoxy with a number of churches being present (among them one of the Holy Trinity, one of St George and one of St Nicholas), but there also exist Eastern Rite Catholic and Protestant religious buildings, as well as a 15th-century mosque.
Yambol in pictures
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