Bulgaria

Summary data on Bulgaria

Area: 110 912 km2
Population: 7.8 million inhabitants in 2008, 21% of whom live in rural areas.
 
Capital: Sofia (1.1 million inhabitants), the capital since 1879.
Second city Plovdiv (722 000 inhabitants).
Other major cities: Varna, Bourgas, Veliko Turnovo, Vratsa, Blagoevgrad, Stara Zagora.

See the map.

People and ethnic: Bulgarians (88.9%), Turks (8.5%), Roma (2.6%) and others (Russians, Greeks, Armenians).
The climate is mostly continental, with cold winters (average -1.3 ° C) and hot summers (23.5 ° C on average).
 

Religion: The main religion is Orthodox Christianity, Islam, a minority practice, other Catholicism and Judaism.
Political system: Democratic Republic since 1990.
President of the Republic of Bulgaria: Rossen Plevneliev, elected on 30 October 2011. Depending from 22 January 2012. Parliament is unicameral. The National Assembly consists of 240 members elected by direct universal suffrage for a term of four years.
Bulgarian currency
The currency is the lev (plural leva) / BGL (international abbreviation), divided into centimes (stotinki), ISO code BGN. The Bulgarian currency is pegged to the euro by a fixed exchange rate of 1.955 per euro.