Old Nessebar occupies a peninsula only about 850 metres long and 350 metres wide on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. A narrow isthmus connects it to the modern town, concentrating ancient walls, medieval churches, nineteenth-century timber houses and sea views into an unusually walkable historic landscape.
Bulgaria declared the old town an architectural-historical reserve of national importance in 1956, and UNESCO placed it on the World Heritage List in 1983. The settlement’s names trace its changing rulers: Mesembria in antiquity, Mesemvria in the Middle Ages and eventually Nessebar.
