The Republic of Bulgaria is located in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey. It is separated from Romania by the Danube River and is bordered on the east by the Black Sea.
The present form of government is a republic, and its political party system is a multiparty system, since legislative elections in 1990. The head of state is a president, and the current Prime Minister represents the Bulgarian Socialist Party. The 1990 elections began a period of political reform which followed the removal from the presidency of the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1989. Bulgaria had been designated a People’s Republic in 1947, had been a Communist country heavily under the influence of the Soviet Union following World War II, and had had a Soviet-style constitution from 1947 until 1989. The capital of Bulgaria is Sofia. Bulgaria has been a member of the European Union (EU) since 2007.
Bulgaria is a small country with a total area of 110,994 square kilometers and a population of 7,740,000 (mid-2005). It is slightly larger than the state of Tennessee. The official language is Bulgarian, which is a Slavic language. Languages spoken are Bulgarian (84.5%), Turkish (9.6%), Roma (4.1%) and other. The main religion is Bulgarian Orthodox (82.6%), and other religions are Islam, other Christian, and other, in that order.
Bulgaria was in the control of the Ottoman Empire from the 14th century until it gained its independence in 1908; its culture is historically influenced by the Ottoman Turkish culture, and before that, by struggles for control with the Byzantine Empire. The inhabitants are descended from local Slavic tribes and from Central Asian Turkic tribes, which arrived in the area in the 7th century.
Web Sites
- Center for Russian and East European Studies
- Embassy of Bulgaria, Washington, DC
- Library of Congress
Catalog
Search the library's catalog for Bulgaria.