Ihtiman ( bg, Ихтиман ) is a town in western

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

, part of

Sofia Province Sofia Province ( bg, Софийска област, translit=Sofiyska oblast) is a province (''oblast'') of Bulgaria. The province does not include Sofia in its territories, but Sofia remains its administrative center. The province borders on t ...

. It is located in the Ihtimanska

Sredna Gora Sredna Gora ( bg, Средна гора ) is a mountain range in central Bulgaria, situated south of and parallel to the Balkan Mountains and extending from the Iskar to the west and the elbow of Tundzha north of Yambol to the east. Sredna Gora ...

mountains and lies in a valley 48 km from

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...

and 95 km from

Plovdiv Plovdiv ( bg, Пловдив, ), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the c ...

, close to the

Trakiya motorway The Trakia motorway (, ) or Thrace motorway, designated A1, is a motorway in Bulgaria. It connects the capital city of Sofia, the city of Plovdiv and the city of Burgas on the Black Sea coast. The motorway is named after the historical region of ...

. Formerly a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

defensive station guarding the important roads to the Bosphorus, Ihtiman was then called ''Stipon''. It continued to play this role under the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

and the Bulgarian Empire, which however shifted its main defensive centre in the region to the

Gate of Trajan The Gate of Trajan or Trajan's Gate ( bg, Траянови врата, Trayanovi vrata) is a historic mountain pass near Ihtiman, Bulgaria. In antiquity, the pass was called Succi. Later it was named after Roman Emperor Trajan, on whose order a ...

hill pass. Following the Ottoman domination in the 14th century, the town's name was changed to ''Ihtiman'', which is thought to be of Ottoman Turkish origin. The traditional and dominant religion is

Eastern Orthodox Christianity Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...

. Ihtiman Hook on

Livingston Island Livingston Island (Russian name ''Smolensk'', ) is an Antarctic island in the Southern Ocean, part of the South Shetlands Archipelago, a group of Antarctic islands north of the Antarctic Peninsula. It was the first land discovered south of 60 ...

in the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 195 ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

is named after Ihtiman.Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica:
Ihtiman Hook.

Climate

Ihtiman has a temperate continental climate with very cold and snowy winters and not too hot, relatively short summers. The average annual temperature is 8.9C.

Municipality

Ihtiman is also the seat of Ihtiman municipality (part of Sofia Province), which includes the following 27 villages:

Twin-towns

Klimovsk Klimovsk ( rus, Климовск, p=ˈklʲiməfsk) is a microdistrict of Podolsk in Podolsk Urban Okrug, Moscow Oblast, Russia, located south of Moscow and south of Podolsk. Population: History Klimovsk was founded in the first half of the 19th ...

Ílhavo Ílhavo () is a municipality located in the centre of Portugal. The population in 2021 was 39,239, in an area of 73.48 km². The Municipality of Ílhavo includes four parishes and two cities: Gafanha da Nazaré and Ílhavo (City). General ...

Notes

External links

Information portal for IHTIMAN

Portal of IHTIMAN municipality
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