Facts & Figures

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AREA: 110 000 sq.km. Bulgaria occupies the heart of the Balkan Peninsula, in Southeast Europe.  It has common borders with Greece and Turkey to the South, former Yugoslavia to the west and Romania to the north. The Danube river is its boundary with Romania, except in Dobroudzha. To the east is the Black Sea, which links Bulgaria with Ukraine, Russia and Georgia and by way of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, with the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.

POPULATION: 7 781 161 (2004)
GNP per capita  - 3 101 USD (2004)
Economic growth:– 4,6-5,6% (2005)
Inflation:  6,4%
UNEMPLOYMENT – 10.1% (March 2006)

CAPITAL: Sofia (1 222 000 citizens)

PRINCIPAL CITIES: Plovdiv (340 000), Varna (300 000), Bourgas   (195 000), and Rousse (166 000)

RELIGION: Bulgarian Orthodox (86,6%), Muslim (13,1 %), Other (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Armenian – 0,3%)

ETHNIC GROUPS: Bulgarian 85 %, Turkish 9%, other 6% (Roma, Jews, Russians, Greeks)

OFFICIAL HOLIDAYS:

January 1st - New Year's Day

March 3rd - National Holiday

Easter - April 27-28,2008

May 1st - Labour Day

May 24th - Day of the Cyrillic Alphabet and Bulgarian Culture

September 6th - Day of Reunification (1885)

September 22nd - Bulgarian Independence Day

December 24th, 25th – Christmas

December 31st - New Year's Eve