Prespa

In 971, the Bulgarian capital Veliki Preslav came under Byzantine control, after which Prespa became an important political centre. It was one of the centres of the Cometopuli uprising against Byzantine rule in the western Bulgarian lands.

Prespa is thought to have been the residence of the Cometopulus David before his death in 976. Samuel subsequently settled there. He effectively governed the Bulgarian state after Aaron's murder in 987, and still more so after Tsar Roman's capture in 991. Prespa is said to have become the empire's official capital during these years. Sources disagree about the period of its capital status: some give 973–996, while others extend it to 1015. After capturing Larissa in Thessaly in 983 or 985, Samuel transferred the relics of St Achillius to Prespa. In 997, Prespa was the seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. During this period, it played a key role in Bulgarian history as the residence of Samuel and the Bulgarian patriarch Germanus.

In 1014, after the Bulgarians' heavy defeat at the Battle of Kleidion, Tsar Samuel sought refuge in Prespa. He died here of a heart attack on 6 October 1014. Prespa remained a royal residence under his successors. After its Byzantine conquest in 1018, it was renamed Constantia. Tsar Peter Delyan liberated it again in 1040, but it was devastated and returned to Byzantine rule in 1041. Prespa remained a historical centre in subsequent centuries, but after 1259 it disappears from the historical sources.