Sister cities of Kyustendil

Kyustendil (Bulgarian: Кюстендил) is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, and the capital of the Kyustendil Province. The town is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, near the borders of Serbia and R. Macedonia; 90 km southwest of Sofia, 130 km northeast of Skopje and 243 km north of Thessaloniki. The total population counts 44,532 people, with a Bulgarian majority and Roma minority. During the Iron Age, a Thracian settlement was located within the town, later known as Roman Pautalia in the 1st century AD. In the Middle Ages, the town switched hands between the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria and Serbia, prior to Ottoman annexation in 1395. The town is since 1878 part of Bulgaria. It was named after Konstantin Dragaš, a 14th-century regional lord.