Demographics of Bulgaria

Demographic history

Various estimates have put Bulgaria's medieval population at 1.1 million in 700 AD and 2.6 million in 1365. The latest 2011 census, the population inhabiting Bulgaria is 7,364,570 in total. The peak was in 1989, the year when the borders opened after a half of a century of communist regime, when the population numbered 9,009,018.

Projections

The following forecast for the future population is an official estimate of the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria.

Ethnic groups

The censuses in 1880, 1887 and 1892 did not have a question on ethnic affiliation. The following table shows the ethnic composition of all Provinces of Bulgaria according to the 2011 census:

Languages

See also Languages of Bulgaria.

The 2001 census defines an ethnic group as a "community of people, related to each other by origin and language, and close to each other by mode of life and culture"; and one's mother tongue as "the language a person speaks best and usually uses for communication in the family (household)". According to the 2011 census, among the Bulgarians 99.4% indicate Bulgarian as a mother tongue, 0.3% - Turkish, 0.1% - Roma and 0.1% others; among Turks 96.6% have pointed the Turkish as a mother tongue and 3.2% - Bulgarian; among the Roma 85% indicate Roma language as a mother tongue, 7.5% - Bulgarian, 6.7% - Turkish and 0.6% - Romanian.

Religion

Bulgaria's traditional religion according to the constitution is the Orthodox Christianity, while Bulgaria is a secular state too. Since the last two censuses (2001 and 2011) provide widely divergent results, they are both shown in the table below. It is noteworthy that over a fifth of the population chose not to respond to this question in the 2011 census.

The results of the Bulgarian 2011 Census, in which the indication of answer regarding the question for confession was optional, are as follows:

The results of the Bulgarian 2001 Census by ethnic groups, the latest census in which the indication of identification(whether by confession or as irreligious) in the question for confession was obligatory, are as follows:

Migration

In relation to internal migration, according to the 1910 census, 300,000 or almost 10% of the ethnic Bulgarians were born in other Bulgarian municipality than the one they were enumerated in. The same data shows that the foreign-born ethnic Bulgarians numbered 78,000, or 2% of them, most numerous of which were the 61,000 Ottoman-born, 9,000 Romanian-born and by less than 2,000 Austro-Hungarian, Serbian and Russian-born. By the 1926 census there had been 253,000 refugees with granted households and land or citizenship but with many more in towns of uncertain number. 35% came from Eastern Thrace, 30% came from Aegean Macedonia, another 18% from Western Thrace, 8% from Dobruja, 4% from the Western Outlands, 3% from Asia Minor and 2% from Vardar Macedonia. They constituted 6% of the country's population. In 1940 70,000 Bulgarians were exchanged from Northern Dobruja. The total number of refugees in 1878-1940 is estimated at between 700,000 and 1,200,000.

According to the 2011 census Russian citizens are the most numerous foreigners - 11 991, followed by 8 444 EU citizens(UK- 2 605, Greece - 1 253, Germany- 848, Poland - 819 and Italy - 456), citizens of Ukraine - 3 064, Republic of Macedonia - 1 091, Moldova - 893 and Serbia - 569. 22.8% of them are from Asia, mostly from Turkey. Those with dual Bulgarian and other citizenship were 22 152, or 0.3% of the population. Of them persons with Bulgarian and Russian citizenship were 5 257 (23.7%), followed by persons with Bulgarian and Turkish citizenship - 4 282 (19.3%), Bulgarian and citizenship of the USA- 1 725 (7.8%). There are at least 17,527 Refugees of the Syrian Civil War with applications in Bulgaria. In 2001-2015 185,447 people applied for Bulgarian citizenship and 116,222 were provided with. 113,647 were granted on grounds of proven Bulgarian ancestry, including 59,968 Republic of Macedonia citizens. 29,218 were Moldovan citizens, 5930 Ukrainians, 5374 Serbians, 5194 Russians, 3840 Israeli, 2192 Albanians, 692 Turks and others. In 2016, 12,880 foreigners were naturalized, including 6196 Macedonians.

Population by country of birth:

Foreigners by nationality:

Life expectancy at birth

Total population: 74.02 yearsMale: 70.62 yearsFemale: 77.55 years (2012 est.)

Infant mortality rate

Total: 7.8 deaths/1,000 live births (2012) Male: 9.2 deaths/1,000 live births (2012)Female: 6.2 deaths/1,000 live births (2012)

Age structure

0–14 years: 13.2%15–65 years: 68.3%65 years and over: 18.5% (Census 2011)

At the 2011 census the largest decadal age group of the identified as Romani people is the 0-9 years old or 21% of them, the same age group accounted for 10% of the Turks and 7% of the Bulgarians. Experts estimate that the Romani in some provinces make up 40% of all aged between 0 and 9 years. Amongst those who did not answer the question on ethnic group lowest is the share of people aged 60+ years.

The median age is around 40 years as of 2011.

Sex ratio

Of the total 7,364,570 as of 2011, 3 586 571 are males and 3,777,999 are females, or there are 1053 women for 1,000 men.

Education

Over 98% of the population is literate, the males being more literate than the females.

Unemployment

The median unemployment for the country in 2011 was 10.1%.

Private ownership

According to Eurostat, 82.3% per cent of the population live in privately owned and owner-occupied homes, ranking it as 12th highest in ownership globally. It is down from a recent peak of 87.6% in 2008, and has been steadily falling since. The number of Internet users has increased rapidly since 2000—from 430,000 their number grew to 1.55 million in 2004, and 3.4 million (48 per cent penetration rate) in 2010. Bulgaria has the third-fastest average Broadband Internet speed in the world after South Korea and Romania with an average speed of 1,611 KBps. Currently there are three active mobile phone operators—Mtel, Telenor and Vivacom, Mtel is the largest one with 5.2 million users as of 2010, Telenor has 3,9 million as of 2007 and Vivacom over 1 million.

HIV

Bulgaria's HIV rate is among the lowest in the world, being 0.1% or 3,800 infected as of 2009.

Urbanization

Most Bulgarians (72.5 per cent) reside in urban areas. Approximately one-sixth of them live in Sofia, which has a population exceeding 1,200,000 people.

Urban population: 5,338,261 or 72.5% of total population (Census 2011) Rural: 2,026,309 or 27.5%Rate of urbanization: -0.3% annual rate of change (2005–10 est.)