PHILIPPOPOLIS (Bulg. Plovdiv), the second town of Bul garia, capital of the department of the same name, and seat of an archbishopric, is situated on the right bank of the Maritsa, 96 m. E.S.E. of Sofia, and on the main Belgrade-Constantinople railway. Pop. 100,485, the majority being Bulgars, the remainder chiefly Turks, Armenians, Jews and gypsies. The former Greek colony is now almost extinct. The city lies on and between seven granite rocks which rise abruptly out of the flat and very fertile plain of the Maritsa; the southern Balkans are distant about 25 m., the northern Rhodopes about twelve. The old Turkish Konak, another park, and the gymnasium are near the Maritsa. The "Gate of Hissara" in the old walls is noteworthy. The new town spreads south and south-west of the old.
Philippopolis is a wealthy commercial city, centre of the trade in tobacco, wheat, silk and attar of roses of south Bulgaria. There is also a growing industry in flour-mills, tobacco factories, beer, soap, leather, ink, furniture and sugar.
were slain when it was captured by the Goths. In 762 it was in ruins when the Emperor Constantine Copronymus settled large colonies of Armenian Paulicians in and around it as frontier guards. It recovered its prosperity under the later Roman Em pire, and excited the admiration of the crusaders. Frederick Bar barossa made it his headquarters ( I'89) ; in 1205 it was granted to Renier of Trit. The inhabitants at first welcomed him, but the next year the Greeks declared for the Byzantine emperor, where upon the Armenians betrayed the city to the Bulgarian tsar, Kaloyan, who massacred its Greek inhabitants, and razed the city to the ground. It recovered again, and became of extreme import ance as the centre from which the Bogumils (q.v.) derived their doctrines through Armenian teachers. It was retaken by the Greeks in 1262, by the Turks in 1363. It was occupied by Russian troops in 1878, and under the Treaty of Berlin was made capital of the autonomous province of Eastern Roumelia, being united with Bulgaria in 1885 (see BULGARIA: History). In 1928 it was severely damaged by earthquake.