Meses Thermes

Meses Thermes is a village in the Thermes municipal unit of the Xanthi regional unit of Thrace, northeastern Greece, part of the thermal spring district that gives the municipality its name — Thermes, meaning 'hot springs' in Greek — where geothermal waters emerge in the Rhodope Mountains amid the heavily forested highland landscape of Greek Thrace, near the borders with Bulgaria and Turkey. The thermal springs of the Xanthi highlands are part of a geothermally active zone stretching across the eastern Balkans, where hot springs are associated with the crystalline basement rocks and tectonic fractures of the Rhodope Massif, one of the oldest geological formations in southeastern Europe. Meses Thermes sits within a culturally diverse landscape where Greek, Pomak, and Roma communities coexist in mountain villages, and the thermal springs have provided a shared natural resource for the local population since antiquity.