The Trakia motorway (, ) or Thrace motorway, designated A1, is a

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

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 Mac ...

. It connects the capital city of

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, 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 of

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 ...

and the city of

Burgas Burgas ( bg, Бургас, ), sometimes transliterated as ''Bourgas'', is the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the region of Northern Thrace and the fourth-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna, with a pop ...

on the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, ...

coast. The motorway is named after the historical region of

Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...

, the northern (Bulgarian) part of which it spans from west to east. The total length of Trakia motorway is and the final section opened on 15 July 2013 after 40 years of construction. Trakia motorway connects with the

Sofia ring road The Sofia ring road ( bg, Софийски околовръстен път, ''Sofíyski okolovrásten pat''), also called in Bulgarian Okolovrástnoto shosé (''Околовръстното шосе'', The ring chaussée), often shortened to just ...

at its eаst end, allowing fast access to Hemus motorway (A2) and Struma motorway (A3) via Sofia Northern Bypass motorway (part of Europe motorway, A6). At its east end, nearby

, Trakia motorway will merge with the planned Cherno More motorway (A5) providing fast access from the south to the city of Varna and the beach resorts on the

. Maritsa motorway (A4) branches off at Orizovo Interchange at kilometer 169 to link Trakia motorway with

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

at the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing. The interchange is situated between

and

Chirpan Chirpan ( bg, Чирпан, ) is a town on the Tekirska River in Stara Zagora Province of south-central Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Chirpan Municipality. As of 2021, the town had a population of 13,391 down fr ...

, roughly 5 km north of Parvomay.

History

The construction of the motorway began in 1973 and the first 10 km from Sofia to

Novi Han Novi may refer to the following : Places and jurisdictions Balkans * Novi Grad, Bosnia and Herzegovina * Novi Sad, a city in Serbia * the former Catholic Diocese of Novi, with see at Herceg-Novi (Castelnuovo), in Montenegro; now a Latin titu ...

entered in service in 1978. In 1984 the motorway reached

, the second largest city in Bulgaria. In 1995 a 32 km section between Plovdiv and Plodovitovo interchange was completed with EBRD co-financing. In 2000

EIB The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

loan was secured for the construction of two sections, between Orizovo interchange and

Stara Zagora Stara Zagora ( bg, Стара Загора, ) is the sixth-largest city in Bulgaria, and the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province. Name The name comes from the Slavic root ''star'' ("old") and the name of the medieva ...

(lot 1), and lot 5, between Karnobat and

, fourth largest city, situated at the Black sea coast. The motorway reached Stara Zagora in 2007, and lot 5 entered in service in 2006. Meanwhile, in 2005 a controversial concession contract was signed by the Bulgarian government and a Portuguese-led consortium. The concession was granted for 35 years without tender procedure and included 433 km from the Serbian border, at Kalotina border checkpoint, to Burgas. However, the contract was cancelled in 2008 and the sections between Stara Zagora and Karnobat (lots 2, 3 and 4) were approved for

EU funds The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

financing. In 2009 and 2010, tenders for the construction of Stara Zagora - Nova Zagora, Nova Zagora - Yambol-west interchange, and Yambol-west interchange - Karnobat sections, totalling 116.8 km, were conducted and contracts were signed. The sections between Stara Zagora and Yambol-east interchange opened to traffic in mid-2012, while the last remaining section between Yambol-east interchange and Karnobat interchange was completed on 15 July 2013. Trakia mw en

Exits

Gallery

File:Trakia highway near to Nova Zagora.jpg, Trakia motorway near Nova Zagora File:Trakiya highway 05.jpg, Trakia motorway near the village of

Vakarel Vakarel ( bg, Вакарел) is a village, away from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Population: 1984 people. It is situated in the Sredna Gora mountains, within Ihtiman Municipality. The village is an important transport knot along the So ...

File:Magistrala-Trakia-pri-Vakarel.jpg, Trakia motorway at

Panagyurishte Panagyurishte ( bg, Панагюрище, also transliterated ''Panagjurište'', ) is a town in Pazardzhik Province, Southern Bulgaria, situated in a small valley in the Sredna Gora mountains. It is 91 km east of Sofia, 43 km north of ...

junction File:Magistrala Trakia.jpg, Trakia motorway near

References

{{coord missing, Bulgaria Motorways in Bulgaria Transport infrastructure completed in 2013 Pan-European Corridor VIII