Often referred to as the "City of the Tsars", Veliko Tarnovo is located on the Yantra River and is famously known as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, attracting many tourists with its unique architecture.

The old part of the town is situated on three hills, Tsarevets, Trapezitsa, and Sveta Gora, rising amidst the meanders of the Yantra.

In 1965, the word велико (veliko), meaning "great", was added to the original name in honour of the town's status as an old capital of Bulgaria.

The Hill Golemyat duvar(Big Fort) with the highest peak 363 m. It is located between Veliko Tarnovo and the village Prisovo.

The Tsarevets, Trapezitsa, Momina krepost were the main centers of kings and boyars during the Second Bulgarian State, when the town was a capital.

Sveta Gora (Holy Mountain) hill was a spiritual and literary center, and part of the today's Rectorate of Veliko Tarnovo University.

On the Orlovets hill are the Varusha neighborhood and the Akatsion and Kartala districts, the highest point is 241 metres (791 ft) above sea level.

Mammals include Hare, Fox, Deer, Wild boar, Hedgehogs, European ground squirrel.

Birds include: Grey partridge, Crow, Common quail, Pheasant, White stork, Eurasian eagle-owl, Goose and others.

A number of coins, specimens and ceramics from the First Bulgarian State were found on the hills on which the capital city of Tarnovgrad stretched.

Veliko Tarnovo, originally Tarnovgrad (Търновград), grew quickly to become the strongest Bulgarian fortification and most prosperous city during the second half of the High and the Late Middle Ages and also most important political, economic, cultural and religious centre of the empire.

In the 14th century, as the Byzantine Empire weakened, Tarnovo claimed to be the Third Rome, based on its preeminent cultural influence in Southeastern Europe.

[10] The political upsurge and spiritual development of Tarnovo were halted when the Ottoman Empire captured the city on 17 July 1393.

Tarnovgrad, along with the rest of present-day Bulgaria, remained under Ottoman rule until the 19th century, when national identity and culture reasserted themselves as a strengthening resistance movement.

On 7 July 1877, Russian general Joseph Vladimirovich Gourko liberated Veliko Tarnovo, ending the 480-year rule of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1878, the Treaty of Berlin created a Principality of Bulgaria between the Danube and the Stara Planina range, with its seat at the old Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tarnovo.

In deference to the city's past, Tsar Ferdinand, of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, chose the Forty Holy Martyrs Church in Veliko Tarnovo as the place to declare the complete independence of Bulgaria on 5 October 1908.

From the same period also dates the idea of creating a large urban area in Northern Bulgaria encompassing the neighboring city of Veliko Tarnovo and the towns of Gorna Oryahovitsa and Lyaskovets (popularly known as "Targolyas").

In 1963, the University of Veliko Tarnovo "St. Cyril and St. Methodius" opened as one of the largest institutions of higher education in the country.

Urbanization continued during the 1970s, as the engineering, electronic, medical, computer, and furniture industries expanded in the region, adding the neighborhoods of Akacia and Kartala to the city's landscape.

The city has five primary schools, named "St. Patriarch Euthymius" (since 1969), "Dimitar Blagoev", "Petko R. Slaveykov" and "Bacho Kiro".

Beginning with their first class, children learn English, and after four years they can study languages such as Russian, French, German, and Italian.

In the 13th-14th centuries it was the main church of the Great Lavra Monastery[citation needed], located at the foot of Tsarevets on the left bank of the river Yantra.

The church hosts the tomb of Serbian archbishop Sava Nemanjic; he died there during his visit to tsar Asen , returning from his second trip to the Holy land[citation needed].

The rebellion of the brothers Asen and Peter against the Byzantines, which led to the restoration of the Bulgarian state in 1186[citation needed], was announced in this church.

Many scientists mention that there were folk healers in the area: Hekimi, Jerahi, Billerie, Akhtari, Znahari, Bayachki, who mostly treated injuries and diseases with herbs and other traditional medicine[21] Dr. Marko Pavlov,[22] the founder of the pharmacy business in Bulgaria, arrived in Tarnovo in 1822.

A year later, he opened the first pharmacy called Lekarnya (Bulgarian: Лекарня) in the city, which is located in a shop opposite the Constituent Assembly Building.

A number of other sites also attract tourists, including the historic hill Trapezitza, the Samovodskata Charshiya, numerous medieval and Bulgarian Renaissance churches, and the ancient Roman fortress of Nicopolis ad Istrum.

Annually on that date he is celebrated with an official honour guard by cadets from the city's National Military University and the local branch of the "Traditsiya" ("Tradition") Historical Society re-enacts the event.

The first football matches in the town were played at the Kolodrum stadium in the area of the Old Military School, the Academic and Marno Pole fields.