Banya (, ) is a village in southeastern

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, situated in the Nesebar Municipality of the

Burgas Province Burgas (, formerly the Burgas okrug) is a province in southeastern Bulgaria on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. The province is named after its administrative and industrial centre, the city of Burgas, the fourth biggest town in the countr ...

. It is situated at the foot of the Eastern part of the

Balkan Mountains The Balkan mountain range is located in the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It is conventionally taken to begin at the peak of Vrashka Chuka on the border between Bulgaria and Serbia. It then runs f ...

, 6 km from the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea 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 bound ...

Coast. Banya is 18 km away from Sunny beach (the largest Bulgarian sea resort), 25 km from the ancient

Nesebar Nesebar (often transcribed as Nessebar and sometimes as Nesebur, , pronounced ) is an ancient city and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous ...

and 50 km from

Burgas Burgas (, ), sometimes transliterated as Bourgas, is the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the region of Northern Thrace and the List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, fourth-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia, Plovdiv, an ...

and

Varna Varna may refer to: Places Europe *Varna, Bulgaria, a city ** Varna Province ** Varna Municipality ** Gulf of Varna ** Lake Varna **Varna Necropolis * Vahrn, or Varna, a municipality in Italy * Varna (Šabac), a village in Serbia Asia * Var ...

- the biggest Bulgarian administrative centres on the Black Sea Coast. Within the village itself is a small restaurant and bar, a couple of shops and a hotel. The village hall was recently demolished and is currently in the process of being rebuilt. The village has been populated by Turkish

coal merchant A coal merchant is the term used in the UK and other countries for a trader who sells coal and often delivers it to households. Coal merchants were once a major class of local business, but have declined in importance in many parts of the developed ...

s and Greek fishermen until the 1910s. Gradually, the original inhabitants have been evicted and Bulgarian refugees from

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

coast and the

Aegean Macedonia Aegean Macedonia ('';'' ) is a term describing the region of Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia in Northern Greece. It is currently mainly used in the North Macedonia, Republic of North Macedonia, including in the Irredentism, irredentist context of a ...

moved in. Irakli, the nearest beach, is one of the last remaining non-commercially developed beaches in Bulgaria. It is a place of unparalleled and unspoilt beauty, a lush fine sandy beach of nearly 4 km, backed by low shrubbery and forest growth. BanyaUpperVillage

Frequented by an 'in-crowd' in the summer months it is largely deserted October to May. Recently an influx of expats, mainly from the UK, but also some from Germany, The Netherlands and also as far afield as Australia, started shaping a small community - currently numbering about 10 families, some of them permanent settlers.

Sources

* ww.bourgas.org/banya Villages in Burgas Province {{Burgas-geo-stub