It was an inhabited place even before the Greeks established the colony of Odessos there about 580 B.C. Later, under the Romans and their successors, the Slavs, Varna became a major port trading with Constantinople, Venice and Dubrovnik. The name of the town (Odessos - a settlement on water) is not Greek but of an earlier linguistic origin, which suggests the presence of an older village on the same territory. Varna is the biggest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Varna’s length is over 11 km, its width, including the new residential district in nearly 9km. Nowadays it is the main port for both naval and commercial shipping and, as it is near the coastal resorts of Golden Sands, St. Constantine (Drouzhba) and Albena, it has a cosmopolitan atmosphere.