western thrace

Western Thrace is the part of the region of Thrace located between the rivers Nestos (Mesta) and Evros (Maritza) in northeastern Greece (in the periphery of East Macedonia and Thrace) with an approximate area of 8,200 km², bordered by Bulgaria to the north, Turkey to the east, and the Aegean Sea to the south. Before the Balkan wars, Western Thrace had a mixed Turkish and Bulgarian population with a strong Greek element in the cities and the Aegean Sea littoral. In the First Balkan war, the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro) wrested control of most of the Ottoman Empire's European territory, including Thrace. The victors quickly fell into dispute on how to divide the spoils of war, leading to the Second Balkan war. In August 1913 Bulgaria was defeated, but gained Western Thrace under the terms of the Treaty of Bucharest. A 1920 population census indicated that Bulgarians numbered 100,000 constituting the majority of the population, with 70,000 Turks and 20,000 Greeks forming the other large communities in the region. Despite the preponderance of Bulgarians and the region's key significance for the economy of Bulgaria as its only outlet to the Aegean Sea, Western Thrace was given to Greece as a war compensation under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly following World War I. After the Greek-Turkish population exchanges of the 1920s, Bulgarians in Western Thrace came under severe pressure from the Greek refugees from Asia Minor and were either forcefully or voluntarily resettled in Bulgaria. The Treaty of Lausanne granted, however, the status of a minority to the Turks from Western Thrace, in exchange for a similar status for the Greek minority in Istanbul (Constantinople). Western Thrace is nowadays home to some 120,000 Muslims, who are the only officially recognised minority in Greece.

Western Thrace

See also