The Principality of Karvuna or Despotate of Dobruja is a fourteenth-century quasi-independent polity in the region of modern Dobruja, that splits off from the Second Bulgarian Empire under the influence of the Byzantine Empire.The principality's name is derived from the fortress of Karvuna (present Balchik), mentioned in Bulgarian and Byzantine documents and Italian portolans of the fourteenth century as its first capital, and located between Varna and Cape Kaliakra.