Shabla ( ) is a town and seaside resort in northeastern Bulgaria, administrative centre of the Shabla Municipality part of Dobrich Province. Shabla municipality includes the following villages: Bojanovo, Chernomortsi, Durankulak, Ezerets, Gorichane, Gorun, Granichar, Krapets, Prolez, Smin, Staevtsi, Tvarditsa, Tyulenovo, Vaklino and Zahari Stoyanovo. As of December 2009, the town itself had a population of 3,586 inhabitants. It is situated on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the vicinity of the salt-water Lake Shabla and Bulgaria's easternmost point, Cape Shabla. Shabla has an extensive white sand beach and was a popular destination for Eastern Bloc tourism until the fall of Communism. The beach itself is located some 5 km from the town (shuttle service in summer) via a road constructed under the EU Phare programme On the main town beach there is a large car park and many old bungalows next to a large restaurant that serves today's tourists in the summer months. The beaches, and generally the seaside in the municipality, are famous for the untouched nature and virgin beaches. Another route leads you to the coastal road and past Shabla's lighthouse which is the tallest, oldest and easternmost one on the Bulgarian coast. Set among the ruins of the 4th-century fortress, it was built in its modern appearance during the Crimean War and opened on 15 July 1856, though it is in fact a reconstructed older lighthouse built between 1756 and 1786. Its tower is 28.23 m-tall. The next village along this route and moving South is Tyulenovo and the start of the rocky coast and high cliffs that stretch through Kamen Bryag to the small bay of Kavarna. Shabla in antiquity was an ancient Thracian settlement founded 6th-5th century BC and known by the Greek name of Karon Limen (Carian Bay) that grew into a Black Sea port in Roman times. The town flourished in the early years of the Byzantine Empire, a fortress still being preserved from the period (4th century). During Ottoman rule it was known as Karamanly History Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic According to the mayor of the city, the oldest technologically advanced gold in the world was discovered near him, preceding by five hundred years the major finds from the Varna Chalcolithic necropolis. Prehistoric settlements conventionally called Shabla I and Shabla II, synchronous with the durankulak, were discovered and explored in 1974 by Prof. Henrieta Todorova in the New Vineyards area, east