Editing Thrace (section)

===Borders===
The historical boundaries of Thrace have varied. The [[List of Ancient Greek tribes|ancient Greeks]] employed the term "Thrace" to refer to all of the territory which lay north of [[Thessaly]] inhabited by the [[Thracians]],<ref>{{cite book |first=Thomas |last=Swinburne Carr |title=The history and geography of Greece |publisher=Simpkin, Marshall & Company |page=[https://archive.org/details/historyandgeogr00carrgoog/page/n66 56] |url=https://archive.org/details/historyandgeogr00carrgoog |year=1838 }}</ref> a region which "had no definite boundaries" and to which other regions (like [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Macedonia]] and even [[Scythia]]) were added.<ref name="Smith">{{cite book |first=Sir William |last=Smith |title=Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |location=London |year=1857 |page=1176 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SUAPAAAAYAAJ}}</ref> In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided into "Asia, Libya, Europa and Thracia".<ref name="Smith" /> As the Greeks gained knowledge of world geography, "Thrace" came to designate the area bordered by the [[Danube]] on the north, by the Euxine Sea (Black Sea) on the east, by northern Macedonia in the south, and by [[Illyria]] to the west.<ref name="Smith" /> This largely coincided with the Thracian [[Odrysian kingdom]], whose borders varied over time. After the Macedonian conquest, this region's former border with Macedonia was shifted from the [[Struma River]] to the [[Mesta River]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Johann Joachim Eschenburg, Nathan Welby Fiske |title=Manual of classical literature |publisher=E.C. Biddle |page= [https://archive.org/details/manualclassical03eschgoog/page/n59 20] n|url=https://archive.org/details/manualclassical03eschgoog|year=1855 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Alexander |last=Adam |title=A summary of geography and history, both ancient and modern |publisher=A. Strahan |page=[https://archive.org/details/asummarygeograp01adamgoog/page/n370 344] |url=https://archive.org/details/asummarygeograp01adamgoog|year=1802 }}</ref> This usage lasted until the Roman conquest. Henceforth, (classical) Thrace referred only to the tract of land largely covering the same extent of space as the modern geographical region.{{clarify|date=December 2016}} In its early period, the [[Thracia (Roman province)|Roman province of Thrace]] was of this extent, but after the administrative reforms of the late 3rd century, Thracia's much reduced territory became the six small provinces which constituted the [[Diocese of Thrace]]. The medieval [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] [[theme of Thrace]] contained only what today is [[East Thrace]].