Antiquity: Thracians and Greeks Founded as a
Thracian settlement, it was later colonised by the
ancient Greek Ionians with the name
Krounoi (), later renamed as
Dionysopolis () after the discovery of a statue of
Dionysus in the sea.
Early Middle Ages: Byzantines and Bulgarians Later it became a
Greek-
Byzantine and
Bulgarian fortress.
Karvuna is the old Bulgarian name of the ancient Dionysopol. The external resemblance to the name of the modern town of Kavarna is an occasion for some local historians to identify Karvuna with
Kavarna, but the archaeological and historical data are not in favour of this proposal. Karvuna was the capital of the Karvuna region, also called
Dobrudja in the Middle Ages until the arrival of the Ottoman Turks. The remains of the castle of the boyars Balik and Dobrotitsa were found above the city hospital of Balchik in the "Horizon" district (Gemidzhiya), but were almost erased by natural processes. In the Vasil Levski neighbourhood there are remains of the great fortress of Karvuna, built by the Byzantines and used by them and by the Bulgarians during the
First Bulgarian Empire. Later, due to difficulties in defending the vast fortress located in the plain and the lack of a view of the sea, the Bulgarians built a fort of which only modest remains are preserved on the highest hill of the city, the Dzheni Bair or Ekhoto ('Echo') hill. The earthen rampart behind the ditch dates to the late 12th century, with various habitation-related findings from the 11th-15th centuries. which is central in the development of Romanian 20th-century painting. Many works of the artists comprising the group depict the town's houses and the Turkish inhabitants, as well as the sea. Some seaside villas of the Romanian elite are preserved in Balchik, including
Villa Storck (built in 1920–1926 by the artists
Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck and
Frederic Storck) and the adjacent modernist
Villa Sanda (1934).
Back to Bulgaria (1940) In 1940, just before the outbreak of
World War II in the region and in the wider context of Bulgaria's interwar policy of returning the lost territories, the Great Powers' moves to secure Bulgarian support, and the earlier
Second Vienna Award, Balchik was ceded back by Romania to Bulgaria by the terms of the
Treaty of Craiova. This included an exchange of populations by ethnic groups. == Population ==