Berkovitsa

Berkovitsa is a town and ski resort in northwestern Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Berkovitsa Municipality, Montana Province and is close to the town of Varshets. Berkovitsa is situated on the northern slope of Kom Peak of the Berkovska Stara Planina Mountain along the valley of the Berkovitsa River, which is a tributary to the Barziya River, at an altitude above sea level 405 m.

The town was mentioned for the first time in Ottoman documents of 1488 (see Nicoara Beldiceanu, Les actes des premiers sultans conservés dans les manuscrits Turcs de la Bibliothèque Nationale a Paris, II, Paris, La Haye, 1964, p. 218, nota 2). It is the successor of an old fortified settlement on the way from Sofia to Lom.