In 1911, Czech historian Konstantin Jireček drew a line across a map of the Balkan peninsula. The line, running east-west from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea, through northern Albania, along the Macedonian-Serbian border, and straight through the middle of Bulgaria, was an imaginary demarcation based on archaeological findings.
To the north, Latin was the dominant language. To the south, Greek dominated. This situation became more fluid after the collapse of the Western half of the Roman empire in the 5th century, eventually leading to the diminishing of Latin’s influence – although it did lead to the creation of Romanian, the only large romance language group of Eastern Europe.
Map found here on wikipedia.


Curious to find the line running parallel to a mountain range (in Bulgaria) rather than in it. Is that merely because the line is crudely drawn?
Comment by Anton Sherwood — September 22, 2008 @ 5:55 pm
thanks alot
Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 2:48 am
thanks for this map..
good
luck
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 7:39 am
merci
Comment by aspicco . — May 17, 2009 @ 5:24 am
teşekkür ederim
Comment by yory — June 12, 2009 @ 9:36 pm
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 4:16 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 6:58 am