Thrace Europe. The word "Thrace" was established by the Greeks for referring to the Thracian tribes, from ancient Greek Thrake (Θρᾴκη), descending from "Thrāix" (Θρᾷξ). The name of the continent Europe first referred to Thrace proper, prior to extending its meaning to the whole continent. The region could have been named after the principal river there, Hebros, possibly from the Indo-European "arg" "white river" (the opposite of Vardar, meaning "black river"), . According to an alternative theory, Hebros means "goat" in Thracian. In Turkey, it is commonly referred to as "Rumeli", "Land of the Romans", owing to this region being the
East Thrace the distribution of ethnoreligious groups in the local "sanjaks" was as follows: The Muslim "millet" was recorded as Turkish, while the church members of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as Greek. In the past century modern East Thrace was the main component of the territory of the Adrianople Vilayet, which excluded the Constantinople Vilayet, but included West Thrace and parts of the Rhodopes and Sakar. A publication from December 21, 1912 in the Belgian magazine "Ons Volk Ontwaakt" (‘Our Nation Awakes’) estimated 1,006,500 inhabitants in the vilayet: East Thrace East Thrace or Eastern Thrace ( or simply "Trakya"; , "Anatoliki Thraki"; ,