; Many exotic and ornamental plants thrive in this climate: Washingtonia filifera, Butia capitata, and Trachycarpus palms are grown in private plots, Japanese hardy bananas and bamboo, Mediterranean cypress, maritime pines, and Atlas cedar are cultivated all around the town and vicinity.

[14][15] The Romans called it Peronticus, while the Byzantine leader Agathon reconstructed the town after barbarian invasions and possibly gave it his own name, Agathopolis (Greek: Αγαθόπολις).

An Ottoman tax register of 1498 lists 158 Christian families in Ahtopol, most of which have Greek names but others evidently Slavic (Bulgarian).

Ahtopol has been burnt down and devastated by sea pirates (often the Caucasian Lazi) many times, with the most recent fire being in 1918, when the town was almost destroyed.

Remains of the town's fortress (reaching up to 8 m in height and 3.5 m in width), the 12th-century monastery of St Yani and a fountain with a carved horseman are the only traces left from ancient times.

[19] After the Balkan Wars, when the area was ceded to Bulgaria by the Ottoman Empire, the town's predominantly Greek population gradually moved to Greece and was replaced by Bulgarian refugees, mostly from Eastern Thrace, specifically Bunarhisar (150 families).