10 Facts About Balkan

The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish Straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast.

Concept of the Balkan Peninsula was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered the Balkan Mountains the dominant mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea.

The term Balkan Peninsula was a synonym for Rumelia in the 19th century, the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire.

From classical antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains were called by the local Thracian name Haemus.

The first attested time the name "Balkan" was used in the West for the mountain range in Bulgaria was in a letter sent in 1490 to Pope Innocent VIII by Buonaccorsi Callimaco, an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat.

Related searches

The term Balkan Peninsula was a synonym for European Turkey, the political borders of former Ottoman Empire provinces.

Balkan Peninsula is bounded by the Adriatic Sea to the west, the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Marmara to the south and the Black Sea to the east.

The main ranges are the Balkan Mountains, running from the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria to the border with Serbia, the Rila-Rhodope massif in southern Bulgaria, the Dinaric Alps in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro, the Korab-Sar mountains which spreads from Kosovo to Albania and North Macedonia, and the Pindus range, spanning from southern Albania into central Greece and the Albanian Alps, and the Alps at the northwestern border.

Balkan region was the first area in Europe to experience the arrival of farming cultures in the Neolithic era.

Balkan region today is a very diverse ethnolinguistic region, being home to multiple Slavic and Romance languages, as well as Albanian, Greek, Turkish, Hungarian and others.