Rila is a town in southwestern Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, in Rila Municipality

Rila Municipality

Rila Municipality covers an area of 361 square kilometres , has 3606 inhabitants and includes the following 5 places:...

, part of Kyustendil Province

Kyustendil Province

-Religion:Religious adherence in the province according to 2001 census:-Language:Mother tongues in the province according to 2001 census:* 153,242 Bulgarian * 7,929 Roma  * 1363 others and unspecified -Ethnic groups:...

. It is the administrative centre of Rila municipality, which lies in the southeastern part of Kyustendil Province.

The town lies in a mountainous region at the foot of the southwestern Rila Mountains, 20 kilometres from the Rila Monastery

Rila Monastery

The Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila, better known as the Rila Monastery is the largest and most famous Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. It is situated in the southwestern Rila Mountains, south of the capital Sofia in the deep valley of the Rilska River at an elevation of above sea level...

, 34 kilometres from Dupnitsa and 65 kilometres from Kyustendil

Kyustendil

Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...

. In antiquity, the area was inhabited by the Greeks and Romans; it was known as Sportela and then as Roligera. In the 14th century, the village was a feudatory possession of the Rila Monastery and may have been mentioned in Tsar Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria

Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria

Ivan Shishman ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Tarnovo from 1371 to 3 July 1395. The authority of Ivan Shishman was limited to the central parts of the Bulgarian Empire. His indecisive and inconsistent policy did little to prevent the fall of his country under Ottoman rule. In 1393 the Ottoman...

's Rila Charter

Medieval Bulgarian royal charters

The medieval Bulgarian royal charters are some of the few secular documents of the medieval Bulgarian Empire . The eight preserved charters all date to the 13th and 14th century, the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and were issued by five tsars roughly between 1230 and 1380...

as Driska. Later on, it was mentioned as İrlie in Ottoman tax registers of 1576.