MESTA RIVER

The 'Mesta' (Bulgarian: Места) or 'Nestos' (Greek: Νέστος) is a river in Bulgaria and Greece. It rises in the Rila Mountains and flows into the Aegean Sea near the island of Thasos. It plunges down towering canyons toward the Aegean Sea through mostly metamorphic formations. At the end, the main stream spreads over the coastal plain of Chrysoupolis and expands as a deltaic system with freshwater lakes and ponds forming the Nestos delta.The length of the river is 230 km, of which 126 km in Bulgaria and the rest in Greece. It forms some gorges in Rila and Pirin.
The Mesta's longest tributary is the Dospat River. The banks of the river are covered mainly by deciduous trees that extend into halfway between Bugaria and Greece where it forms the today's boundary of Greek Macedonia and Thrace, as well as the one between the Kavala and the Xanthi prefectures. The river later forms a delta to the north where swamplands, wetlands and a lagoon once existed except in the east.