Location
Ruse municipality is situated on the high right bank of the Danube river. The municipal centre - the town of Ruse is located to the north-east of the mouth of  Rusenski Lom river. Its territory occupies the western part of the largest Danube lowlands - the Pobrezhie lowland. Its average above sea level is 46 meters.

History
The major factor for the territorial development of the town of Ruse is the Danube river along which the town has been developing during the ages. The ancient town of Seksaginta Prista (i.e. sixty ships), according to a military route map from the age of emperor Octavian August, was the base of the Roman navy along the lower course of the Danube river. Subsequently that strong fortress turns into a base camp for the Roman invasion to the North at the time of rule of the emperors Vespasian and Trayan. The town was plundered and destroyed during the numerous attacks of the Slavs and proto-Bulgarians in the VI and VII centuries.
During the time of the First Bulgarian state, 30 km to the south of the old Roman fortress, the mediaeval town of Cherven comes into being and by Prista itself the settlement of Rusi appears.
The geostrategic importance of Ruse is highly appreciated by the Ottoman invaders and they turn the small settlement on the bank of the Danube river into a big and important for the empire town. According to reports from Turkish military registers, during the XVIII century the feudal town of Ruschuk is a solid military stronghold - a constituent part of the fortified rectangle Ruschuk - Silistra - Varna - Shumen as well as a base port of the Turkish navy and a residence of the admiral.
After the new territorial reform in the Ottoman empire in 1864, a new micro territorial administrative unit originates on the territory of North and Western Bulgaria - Tuna (Danube) Vilayet / province of the Ottoman empire/, the main centre of which is Ruschuk. It includes 65 caazas, 1500 municipalities and the towns of Tulcha, Ruschuk, Tarnovo, Vidin, Nish and Sofia. Midhad pasha, an experienced administrator possessing a reforming spirit who in 1872 becomes a grand vizir, is placed at the head of the vilayet. During the six years of his service he takes serious care of the development of trade and crafts. He opens craft schools, establishes a special trade court, builds the first streets with curb stones, sidewalks, Viennese street lamps and western style catering establishments. 
The town goes through an unprecedented boom. A post office, a hospital, an orphanage, an exemplary farm. The first agricultural bank and the first joint-stock company on the Balkan peninsula was founded. In 1866 baron Hirsh built the first railroad between Ruse and Varna. Being facilitated by the mail services, the telegraph, the railroad and the regular water transport which connect the town not only with Vienna but also with Tsarigrad /Istanbul/ a lot of foreigners establish their trade agencies here. Soon Austria-Hungary, Russia, Great Britain, France and Italy open their own consulates and Prussia, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain and Greece open consulates of honour. The streets of the town echo with the multiethnic speech of Bulgarians, Turkish, Armenians, Jewish, Wallachs /Romanians/, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, English, Russians, etc.
In this modern European town Bulgarian schools are opened and the first written in Bulgarian and printed in Bulgaria newspaper "Tuna" (Danube) is established.
The economic prosperity of Ruse, its contacts with the middle European countries, with Russia and Romania, the influx of foreigners and the access to the ideas of bourgeois Europe directly influence the spiritual life of the Bulgarians living here. The most active of them take part in the struggle for national liberation and independent church.
On 20 February 1878, after a continuous siege, the Russian troops enter Ruse and are happily welcomed by the Bulgarian population. This is the beginning of a new stage of the town's history. The post liberation development of Ruse is characterized with prosperity based on the changed social-economic relations and the good foundation of the historical heritage of the reforms of Midhad pasha. For a short period of time Ruse becomes a large-scale financial and commercial centre. From 1890 till 1905 one third of the Bulgarian import enters the country through the port of Ruse.
The town develops rapidly till the Balkan wars in 1912-1913. The tearing off of Southern Dobrudzha from Bulgaria after the wars deprives it of its natural hinterland and it starts to slowly decline. In 1940 when under the Krayova agreement Southern Dobrudzha region is annexed to the territory of Bulgaria again, Ruse becomes a regional centre for the second time.
The post capitalist period of the development of the town is marked by a strong territorial growth, great over-expenditure of resources including territorial ones. This is a period of concentration of demographic mass and economic potential.

Source: domino.bg