Stryama

The Stryama ( , known in Antiquity as Syrmus) is a river in southern Bulgaria, an important left tributary of the Maritsa. It originates in the Balkan Mountains. The river is 110 kilometres in length and is the sixth longest in the Maritsa drainage, following the Tundzha (390 km), the Arda (290 km), the Ergene (281 km), the Topolnitsa (155 km) and the Sazliyka (145 km). According to the Bulgarian linuist Yordan Zaimov, the etymology of the river derived from Thracian serm, meaning flow.

== Geography == thumb|left|Stryama river valley by Felix Philipp Kanitz The river takes its source under the name Kameninitsa at an altitude of 2,158 m at the southern foothills of the summit of Vezhen (2,198 m) in the central Balkan Mountains. Until the town of Klisura it flows south in a deep valley with a large longitudinal slope. The river then turns east and southeast, enters the Karlovo Valley and crosses its southern reaches in a wide shallow riverbed. Downstream of the town of Banya the Struma turns southwards and forms a 3 km gorge between Sashtinska Sredna Gora to the west and Sarnena Sredna Gora to the east.