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
Eastern Macedonia and Thrace governor and former Prefect of Rhodopi, (PASOK), elected in the 2010 regional election. The region is home to Greece's main Muslim minority, made up mainly of Pomaks and Western Thrace Turks, whose presence dates to the Ottoman period. Unlike the Muslims of Greek Macedonia, Epirus, and elsewhere in northern Greece, they were exempted from the Greek-Turkish population exchange following the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne (1923). According to the 1991 census, the Muslim minority numbered around 98,000 people or 29% of the population of Western Thrace, of which about half were Western Thrace Turks and the rest (35%) Pomaks and Muslim