Topolovgrad is a town in south-central Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, part of Haskovo Province

Haskovo Province

Haskovo Province is a province in southern Bulgaria, neighbouring Greece and Turkey to the southeast, comprising parts of the Thracian valley along the river Maritsa. It is named after its administrative and industrial centre - the city of Haskovo...

, situated at the northern foot of the Sakar Mountain. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Topolovgrad Municipality. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 5,730 inhabitants.

The town had the Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

 name Kavaklı (from Turkish kavak, "poplar"), which was also used by the local Greek community (as Καβακλί), during the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria and until 1934. About 4,000 Greeks

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 emigrated from the town and its surroundings around 1925, with compact groups of Bulgarian refugees from Western Thrace

Western Thrace

Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...

, Eastern Thrace, Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 and Macedonia

Macedonia (region)

Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

 coming at their place. Topolovgrad and the surrounding area have otherwise been inhabited since ancient times, as evidenced by the dolmen

Dolmen

A dolmen—also known as a portal tomb, portal grave, dolmain , cromlech , anta , Hünengrab/Hünenbett , Adamra , Ispun , Hunebed , dös , goindol or quoit—is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of...

s found at Hlyabovo and the Paleokastro fortress that may have been built by the Thracians

Thracians

The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...

.

People

• Krum Krumov - writer and philologist
• Delko Karadelkov - chairman, Bulgarian Journalists' Union, 1976
• Evelin Banev "Brendo"
  Evelin Banev "Brendo"
  Evelin Banev "Brendo" is a self-made Bulgarian businessman and serial entrepreneur. Brendo accumulates his initial capital through a number of successful transactions on the international stock markets during the Dot-Com Bubble...
  
   - self-made businessman, wrestler