Explore Bulgaria in Europe - Bulgaria Tourism Info

Description and Basic Information

Bulgaria with its capital Sofia is located in Europe (Southeastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea). It covers some 110,911 square kilometres (slightly larger than Tennessee) with 7,262,000 citizens. Bulgarian and Turkish are the the languages commonly used by the people in Bulgaria. Macedonia, Greece, Romania, , Turkey and Serbia are bordering countries.

Bulgaria is a country in the Balkans on the western side of the Black Sea. The Bulgarian language is related to Serbian, Russian and other Eastern European languages, but contains many international words. Bulgarians use the Cyrillic alphabet which can make the task of getting around the country somewhat difficult if you aren't familiar with this alphabet as most signs are written in it. However, getting acquainted with the alphabet isn't very difficult and may save you a lot of trouble, especially as many common words are homophones of English or French words. Bulgaria is a member of the Schengen Agreement but has not yet fully implemented it. For EU and EFTA (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland) citizens, an officially approved ID card (or a passport) is sufficient for entry. In no case will they need a visa for a stay of any length. Others will generally need a passport for entry.

Pictures from Sofia (Capital)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Bulgaria

The landscape features mostly mountains with lowlands in north and southeast. The average density of population is about 65 per km². The climate in can be described as temperate with cold, damp winters, hot, dry summers. Potential threats by nature are earthquakes or landslides.

To reach someone in Bulgaria dial +359 prior to a number. There are 2,164,000 installed telephones. And there are 10,617,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".bg". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz.

The country consists of 28 regions/states which are listed below.

Regions/States of Bulgaria

Bulgarian Tourism Information

Official Tourism Office

Website: Bulgaria Tourism

1 St. Sofia Str.
1000 Sofia
Bulgaria

Phone: +359 2 987 9778
Fax: +359 2 989 6939

Unesco World Heritage Properties

Bulgaria has 3 more world heritage locations. To see all of them, visit the Bulgaria Unesco Heritage location overview.

Ancient City of Nessebar

Situated on a rocky peninsula on the Black Sea, the more than 3,000-year-old site of Nessebar was originally a Thracian settlement (Menebria). At the beginning of the 6th century BC, the city...

Boyana Church

Located on the outskirts of Sofia, Boyana Church consists of three buildings. The eastern church was built in the 10th century, then enlarged at the beginning of the 13th century by Sebastocrator...

Madara Rider

The Madara Rider, representing the figure of a knight triumphing over a lion, is carved into a 100-m-high cliff near the village of Madara in north-east Bulgaria. Madara was the principal sacred...

Rila Monastery

Rila Monastery was founded in the 10th century by St John of Rila, a hermit canonized by the Orthodox Church. His ascetic dwelling and tomb became a holy site and were transformed into a monastic...

Rock-Hewn Churches of Ivanovo

In the valley of the Roussenski Lom River, in north east Bulgaria, a complex of rock-hewn churches, chapels, monasteries and cells developed in the vicinity of the village of Ivanovo. This is where...

Demographic Information

Age Distribution in Bulgaria

Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Natural Population Growth

Population, Migration and Growth: The population in Bulgaria is shrinking at an rate of 0.77% (or by 54,903 citizens). Each year 20,017 people leave this country (or 2.80 per thousand citizens) - making it an emmigration country. This leads to an absolute natural increase rate of the population of -0.49%. Or an total decrease of 34,886 citizens.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.