Geography
Bulgaria is located in southeastern Europe, bordered by Romania, Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Greece, and the Black Sea. The northern border with Romania follows the course of the Danube to Silistra.
The political geography of Bulgaria has changed markedly since the restoration of the state in 1878. Russia, whose victories led to its creation, lobbied for the creation of a “Greater Bulgaria” that would have included much of Macedonia. In the Berlin Congress of 1878 the other powers gave him a much smaller territory, divided until 1885 between the principalities of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia.
It was an independent kingdom from 1908 to 1946 and then a republic. Bulgaria wanted to expand its territory during the Balkan wars of 1912 – 1913 and during the two world wars. The military defeat led to the loss of territories in 1913 and 1919, although in 1940 it recovered the south of Dobruja, which was confirmed in the Treaty of Paris of 1947.
Its territory occupies 110,912 km². For comparative purposes, its surface is similar to that of Honduras and Cuba.
Economy
Bulgaria has been one of the countries that has had the most economic problems when it comes to separating its economy from the former Soviet Union, which has diminished its possibilities in relation to other countries in the Central Europeanarea. In agriculture, two thirds of the country’s soil is dedicated to the cultivation of cereals, mainly wheat, corn, barley, rye and rice. Industrial crops of tobacco, cotton and sunflower they represent a more profitable part of the farm organization. In the process of privatization of the land, there has been a large parcelization that has not benefited the farms.
In the industry, the iron and steel industry, chemical plants and textile production stand out. It is almost completely devoid of oil, which aggravates its external dependence on energy.
It maintains important deposits of coal and lignite that maintain the antiquated thermal power plants and the steel industry. The rest of the energy comes in a small proportion from hydraulics. In 2006 he had to disconnect two Soviet atomic reactors from the Kozloduy nuclear power plant. Other blocks of the plant are modernized with Euratom credits, for a total of 212.5 million euros. Already in 1993, with the fundamental collaboration of the then European Community that contributed about 19 million dollars, the security systems of the plant were improved. Bulgaria exports energy to Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Romania.
As a member of the European Union since 2007, Bulgaria has done significant work to fight corruption and accelerate the privatization process that favors an action program until 2009 in which banking has been significantly improved, the reinvestments of Bulgarian and foreign businessmen who have reached five billion euros in 2006. The European Treaty of Lisbon signed in 2007 granted Bulgaria the right to call the euro “evro” to adapt the name to the Cyrillic alphabet.
The World Bank in its annual study included Bulgaria among the top 10 countries that, in its opinion, implemented the largest number of reforms in 2006. Late 1970s. The technological advances of the 1980s in western countries made the Bulgarian industry obsolete. The reforms undertaken at that time were timid and the external debt increased notably.
Demography
As of 2007, Bulgaria has a population of 7,604,687 residents. Life expectancy is 72.5 years. 98.2% of the population is literate. The average number of children per woman is only 1.39, which is causing its population to decrease by 0.83% each year, around 45,000h.
Main ethnic groups in the country: Bulgarians: 83.9%, Turks: 9.4%, Gypsies: 4.7%, as well as small groups of Armenians, Jews (mostly Sephardic), Russians and Karakachans (Greek-speaking nomadic ethnic group).
Religion
Orthodox 20%, Muslim 12.3%, Catholic 0.6%, Protestant 0.5%, others, Atheists and undeclared more than 50%.
Since 865 Bulgaria has traditionally been a Christian nation, with a large majority of Bulgarians belonging to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. During the Ottoman period Islam was established in the country, Catholicism has been present since medieval times and Protestantism arrived in the 19th century. There is also a Jewish minority in the country.
Unlike several of its neighbors, in Bulgaria religions coexist peacefully. Sofia, the capital of the country, has a reputation for being very tolerant and in fact, Saint Nedelya Church, Banya Bashi Mosque and Sofia Synagogue are only a few meters apart.
Languages
According to Andyeducation, Bulgarian is the official language of Bulgaria, it is also one of the official languages of the European Union. In its diversity, it has managed to enrich itself with archaic and international words, as well as with words typical of each region close to its borders. A tendency to internationalize the verbal background and improve the rapport and understanding of the various cultures of the Balkan Peninsula has achieved homogeneity in the forms of expression.
Other secondary languages correspond to the different ethnic groups.
Culture
Often described as a country at the crossroads between East and West, Bulgaria functioned as the center of Slavic Europe for much of the Middle Ages, exerting considerable literary and cultural influence on the Slavic world through the literary schools of Preslav and Ohrid. Bulgaria also gave rise to the Cyrillic alphabet, the second most widely used in the world, which originated in these two schools in the 10th century.
A number of ancient civilizations, especially the Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Slavs and Bulgarians, have left their mark on the culture, history and heritage of Bulgaria. The country has nine places declared as World Heritage Sites:
- Knight of Madara.
- Two Thracian tombs (one in Sveshtari and one in Kazanlak).
- Three monuments of medieval Bulgarian culture (Boyana Church, Rila Monastery and Ivanovo Rock Churches).
- Two examples of natural beauty: the Pirin National Park and the Srébarna Nature Reserve.
- The ancient city of Nesebar.
- The Varna Necropolis, 3500-3200 BC. It contains the oldest examples of goldsmithing in the world.
