The 12th-13th-century St Nicholas Church, the 18th-century St George's Church from the Bulgarian National Revival and the St Forty Martyrs Church from 1859 are located in Sapareva Banya.
The former Byzantine town of Germane or Germania once stood at the location of modern Sapareva Banya. It was the birthplace of the great Byzantine general Belisariusand was first mentioned in the 6th century. In an 11th-century charter of Basil II, it was listed as ?????????. The modern name first appears as Bane in 1576. Later on, it was disambiguated by adding the name of the nearby village of Saparevo: the area is rich in mineral springs and many localities have similar names. Saparevo's name, first attested in 1570, is probably derived from the noun tsapar("wood chopper"), from the dialectal verb tsaparim (???????), "to chop, to cut". Some authors suggest an etymology from the Thracian *Sapara
