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Blagoevgrad Province

Coordinates: 41°45′N 23°15′E / 41.750°N 23.250°E / 41.750; 23.250
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41°45′N 23°15′E / 41.750°N 23.250°E / 41.750; 23.250

Blagoevgrad Province
Област Благоевград
Province
Malyovitsa
Malyovitsa
Location of Blagoevgrad Province in Bulgaria
Location of Blagoevgrad Province in Bulgaria
CountryBulgaria
CapitalBlagoevgrad
Municipalities14
Government
 • GovernorBiser Mihaylov
Area
 • Total6,449.47 km2 (2,490.15 sq mi)
Elevation
555 m (1,821 ft)
Population
 (December 2022)[1]
 • Total288,161
 • Density45/km2 (120/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)
License plateE
Websitewww.bl.government.bg

Blagoevgrad Province (Bulgarian: област Благоевград, oblast Blagoevgrad or Благоевградска област, Blagoevgradska oblast), also known as Pirin Macedonia or Bulgarian Macedonia (Bulgarian: Пиринска Македония; Българска Македония), (Pirinska Makedoniya or Bulgarska Makedoniya) is a province (oblast) of southwestern Bulgaria. It borders four other Bulgarian provinces to the north and east, the Greek region of Macedonia to the south, and North Macedonia to the west. The province has 14 municipalities with 12 towns. Its principal city is Blagoevgrad, while other significant towns include Bansko, Gotse Delchev, Melnik, Petrich, Razlog, Sandanski, and Simitli.

Geography

The province has a territory of 6,449.5 km2 (2,490.2 sq mi) and a population of 323,552[1] (as of 2011). It is the third largest in Bulgaria after Burgas and Sofia Provinces and comprises 5.8% of the country's territory. Blagoevgrad Province includes the mountains, or parts of, Rila (highest point of the Balkans — Musala summit, 2925 m), Pirin (highest point — Vihren summit, 2914 m), the Rhodopes, Slavyanka, Belasitsa, Vlahina, Maleshevo, Ograzhden and Stargach. There are two major rivers — Struma River and Mesta River — with population concentrations along their valleys, which are also the main transport corridors.

Climate

The climate varies from temperate continental to Mediterranean in the southernmost parts. Natural resources are timber, mineral springs, coal, construction materials, including marble and granite. The beautiful and preserved environment is widely considered an important resource. A number of national parks and protected territories care for the biodiversity. Arable land is 38.8% and forests constitute 52% of the province's territory.

History

The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 saw the annexation of the area to the Bulgarian state. Before the wars, it had been under Ottoman rule for over five centuries.

Municipalities

Map of Blagoevgrad Province showing the municipal subdivisions and centres

The Blagoevgrad province (област, oblast) contains 14 municipalities (singular: община, obshtina - plural: общини, obshtini). The following table shows the names of each municipality in English and Cyrillic, the main town (in bold) or village, and the population of each as of 2011.

Municipality Cyrillic Pop.[1]
census 2011 		Town/Village Pop.[1]
census 2011
Bansko Банско 13,125 Bansko 8,562
Belitsa Белица 9,927 Belitsa 3,362
Blagoevgrad Благоевград 77,441 Blagoevgrad 70,881
Garmen Гърмен 14,981 Garmen 1,982
Gotse Delchev Гоце Делчев 31,236 Gotse Delchev 19,219
Hadzhidimovo Хаджидимово 10,091 Hadzhidimovo 2,730
Kresna Кресна 5,441 Kresna 3,470
Petrich Петрич 54,006 Petrich 28,902
Razlog Разлог 20,598 Razlog 11,960
Sandanski Сандански 40,470 Sandanski 26,472
Satovcha Сатовча 15,444 Satovcha 2,434
Simitli Симитли 14,283 Simitli 6,674
Strumyani Струмяни 5,778 Strumyani 998
Yakoruda Якоруда 10,731 Yakoruda 5,792

Economy

The region is characterized with diversified economic branch structure: food and tobacco processing industries, agriculture, tourism, transport and communications, textile industry, timber and furniture industries, iron processing and machinery industry, construction materials industry, as well as pharmaceuticals, plastics, paper and shoes production. Approximately 10% of the population is unemployed (close to the national average). There are 4 major hospitals in the province.[citation needed]

With its railway line and road connection, the region forms the heart of the land-based trading route between northern Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. Since the early 2000s the province enjoys a mini boom in trade from thousands Greek day-trippers from across the border, purchasing cheaper goods and services (dental, opticians, etc.). Since the early 1990s, the region has also attracted Greek manufacturers who moved their production line from Greece, especially to Petrich. It was an important tourist destination during the communist years for East Germans and is slowly picking up again. The unique town of Melnik was once a wealthy centre built on the back of exiled phanariots from Constantinople. Now it is a centre for wine production and offers eco-tourism.

Infrastructure remains relatively underdeveloped, especially regarding road and rail communications. It remains an important target for potential EU funding. There are two major infrastructural projects in the region. The Struma motorway, which is planned to connect the capital Sofia with the Greek border and the port of Thessaloniki, is going to run through the valley of the Sruma River, and will be ready in a few years. The second project is the airport of Bansko. The cost is currently estimated at around €30,000,000.

Culture, education and monuments

Historical and archaeological monuments include the ruins of antique Thracian and Roman settlements, Early Christian basilicas, medieval Byzantine and Bulgarian towns, monasteries and fortresses, as well as many preserved buildings and whole villages — examples of the architecture from the Ottoman period (like Melnik, the Rozhen Monastery and Bansko).

A theatre, a library with 345,000 tomes, and an opera house are situated in the provincial centre, Blagoevgrad. There are art galleries in Bansko, Blagoevgrad and Sandanski. Many small cultural institutions, chitalishta, are dispersed around the province. The Pirin State Ensemble is the most prominent among the numerous folklore and music bands. There are 10 museums in the province that preserve the rich historical, ethnographic and archaeological heritage. Cultural events include the Theatre Festival in Blagoevgrad, the Jazz Festival in Bansko and the Melnik Evenings of Poetry.

The Southwestern University and the American University in Bulgaria are situated in Blagoevgrad; the latter is the second largest American university campus in Europe and is located in the former headquarters of the communist party. Annually the city draws around 10,000 students from the country and abroad. The number of schools in the province is 182.[citation needed]

Notable people from Blagoevgrad Province

A number of the province's towns were renamed in honor of major figures such as Sandanski (after Yane Sandanski).

Demographics

The province had a population of 323,552 according to the 2011 census, of which 49.3% were male and 50.9% were female.[2][3][4][5]

The following table represents the change of the population in the province after World War II:

Blagoevgrad Province
Year 1946 1956 1965 1975 1985 1992 2001 2005 2007 2009 2011
Population 252,908 281,015 302,503 322,974 345,942 351,637 341,173 333,577 329,309 327,885 323,552
Sources: National Statistical Institute,[2] „Census 2001“,[3] „Census 2011“,[4] „pop-stat.mashke.org“,??

Ethnic groups

Ethnic groups in Blagoevgrad Province (2011 census)
Ethnic group Percentage
Bulgarians
 
 88.6%
Turks
 
 6.0%
Romani
 
 3.4%
others and indefinable
 
 2.0%

Total population (2011 census): 323 552
Ethnic groups (2011 census):[6] Identified themselves: 283,556 persons:

  • Bulgarians: 251,097 (88,55%)
  • Turks: 17,027 (6,0%)
  • Romani: 9,739 (3,43%)
  • Others and indefinable: 5,693 (2,01%)
  • Unspecified: 40,524 (this figure is not included in the percentage.)

The ethnic Bulgarian population in the province also has a regional Macedonian identity.[7] This was actually also the way most Slavs across the region of geographical Macedonia viewed themselves prior to World War II: as Bulgarians in an ethnic sense and as Macedonians in a regional sense.[8][9][10] An "ethnic Macedonian" identity developed only after World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia, mostly in order to justify Yugoslav hold over the region.[11] However the Jugoslav government soon realised that by fostering a separate Macedonian ethnicity, language and culture, they could claim all Slavs in the entire region of Macedonia to be "Macedonians", thus justifying Yugoslav territorial claims to Pirin Macedonia in Bulgaria and Aegean Macedonia in Greece.[12]

And indeed, first Yugoslav and then the independent Republic of Macedonia have consistently claimed hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians, even as many as 750,000, to be ethnic Macedonians.[13] Most efforts have been directed at the Blagoevgrad Province itself. A separatist party, UMO Ilinden-Pirin, demanding cultural autonomy for the Blagoevgrad Province, or its outright secession, wаs created and funded directly from Skopje—a fact that has been admitted by members of the party itself.[14][15] The party has since been repeatedly banned as the Bulgarian Constitution prohibits ethnic or separatist parties.[16]

According to the 2011 Bulgarian census, there were only 561 ethnic Macedonians (0.2%) in the Blagoevgrad Province,[17] out of a total of 1,654 Macedonians in the entire country.[18] However, 429 citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia resided in the province, a number that was almost as high as the the number of people declaring Macedonian ethnicity.[19] Nevertheless, local ethnic Macedonian political activist Stojko Stojkov, head of the United Macedonian Organization Ilinden–Pirin, has claimed that there are between 5,000 and 10,000 native ethnic Macedonians, but in the whole of Bulgaria.[20] By 2017, a total of 18,000 Macedonian nationals were registered as residents in the Blagoevgrad Municipality alone. Their number in the whole of the province is higher.[21] They are citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia, but have also Bulgarian citizenship, based on declared Bulgarian ethnic origin.[22] However, registering a permanent residence in Bulgaria is a requirement for becomeing naturalized in Bulgaria, and the vast majority of these people do not live in the Blagoevgrad Province.

Languages

Mother tongues in the province according to 2001 census:[23] 306,118 Bulgarian (89.7%), 19,819 Turkish (5.8%), 9,232 Romani (2.7%) and 6004 others and unspecified (1.6%).

Religion

Religions in Blagoevgrad Province (2011 census)[24]
Religious group Percentage
Orthodox Christian
 
 60.86%
Muslim
 
 12.56%
Protestant Christian
 
 0.46%
Roman Catholic Christian
 
 0.22%
others and indefinable
 
 25.86%

Religious adherence in the province according to 2001 census:[25]

Census 2001
religious adherence population %
Orthodox Christians 268,968 78.84%
Muslims 62,431 18.30%
Protestants 1,546 0.45%
Roman Catholics 277 0.08%
Other 933 0.27%
Religion not mentioned 7,018 2.06%
total 341,173 100%

Most Muslims in the province are Bulgarian Muslims, also called Pomaks. That makes Blagoevgrad Province together with Smolyan Province and the area around Velingrad one of the few places where Bulgarian Muslims make up the majority of the Muslims while in Bulgaria general most Muslims are from Turkish background.

Sport

Blagoevgrad Province is currently one of the best-represented provinces in Bulgarian football, with 3 teams playing in the Bulgarian A PFG (second only to Sofia with 4) — FC Vihren Sandanski, PFC Belasitsa Petrich and PFC Pirin 1922 Blagoevgrad. One more team from the province, PFC Pirin Blagoevgrad (as distinct from Pirin 1922), began the 2005/06 season in the highest Bulgarian division, but disbanded shortly afterwards due to financial problems.

Owing to the alpine features and accessible location, the northern and eastern regionof Blagoevgrad Province is also a centre of winter sports. The main centre is Bansko which is becoming a leading skiing resort at European level with rapidly rising property prices.

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Census 2011[permanent dead link]
  2. ^ a b (in Bulgarian) Bulgarian National Statistical Institute - 2011 census Archived 2011-07-14 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ a b „WorldCityPopulation“
  4. ^ a b „pop-stat.mashke.org“
  5. ^ (in Bulgarian) Population by 01.02.2011 by Area and Sex Archived 2011-04-08 at the Wayback Machine from Bulgarian National Statistical Institute: Preliminary results of Census 2011
  6. ^ Population by province, municipality, settlement and ethnic identification, by 01.02.2011; Bulgarian National Statistical Institute Archived 2013-05-21 at the Wayback Machine (in Bulgarian)
  7. ^ "Center for Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe - Southeast Europe (CEDIME-SE) - Macedonians of Bulgaria" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-07-23. Retrieved 2008-07-03.
  8. ^ Zielonka, Jan; Pravda, Alex (2001). Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe. Vol. 2 International and Transnational Factors. p. 422. ISBN 978-0199244096. Unlike the Slovene and Croatian identities, which existed independently for a long period before the emergence of SFRY, the Macedonian identity and language were themselves a product of federal Yugoslavia, and took shape only after 1944.
  9. ^ Danforth, Loring M. (10 November 2020). The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-0691043579. Many disinterested observers at the time concluded that the Slavic-speaking inhabitants of Macedonia were "Bulgarians" (R.King 1973:187) and that the term "Macedonian" was not used to identify people as belonging to a distinct "Macedonian" ethnic or national group. Rather "Macedonian" was either used in a general regional sense to designate all the inhabitants of Macedonia regardless of their ethnicity, or it was used more specifically to refer to the Slavic-speaking Christians living in the geographical area of Macedonia.
  10. ^ Fine, J. (1991). The Early Medieval Balkans, A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. University of Michigan Press. pp. 36–37. ISBN 0-472-08149-7. Until the late nineteenth century both outside observers and those Bulgaro-Macedonians who had an ethnic consciousness believed that their group, which is now two separate nationalities, comprised a single people, the Bulgarians. Thus the reader should ignore references to ethnic Macedonians in the Middle Ages which appear in some modern works. In the Middle Ages and into the nineteenth century, the term Macedonian was used entirely in reference to a geographical region. Anyone who lived within its confines, regardless of nationality, could be called a Macedonian.
  11. ^ Hupchik, Dennis (15 March 2002). The Balkans. From Constantinople to Communism. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 430. ISBN 978-0312217365. When World War II ended, Yugoslav Macedonia was in the sticky position of creating a unique national language, history, and culture by any means (real or artificial) to justify its existence separate from neighboring Bulgaria.
  12. ^ Cook, Bernard A. (2001). Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopaedia. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge. p. 808. doi:10.4324/9780203801710. ISBN 9780203801710. With the establishment of the Republic of Macedonia, which covered 10.5 percent of the total area of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav government had three objectives: to strengthen southern Yugoslavia by removing Bulgarian influence; to make Macedonia as a whole, not just the Yugoslav part, a connecting link for the establishment of a federation of Balkan peoples; and to create a Slavic consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia. Thus the historians of the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia started declaring that Macedonia as a whole was a Slavic country both in its historical tradition and in its ethnic composition. For this reason, they claimed, it had to be united and form a unified state. The other two parts, Aegean Macedonia and Pirin Macedonia, would have to be restored, i.e., to be united with Yugoslav Macedonia.
  13. ^ Macedonia's Latest Propaganda Spree Invents 750 000 'Macedonians' in Bulgaria. 16, 2011, Novinite.com.
  14. ^ "Skopje gave €75,000 to a Macedonian party of ours". Dneven Trud. 26 June 2006. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 26 June 2006.
  15. ^ "Днес+ :: Политика". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 6 April 2008.
  16. ^ "РЕШЕНИЕ N: 1 от 29 февруари 2000 г.по конституционно дело N: 3 от 1999 г.(Обн., ДВ, бр. 18 от 07.03.2000 г.)". Archived from the original on 21 April 2008. Retrieved 5 April 2008.
  17. ^ Население по етническа група и майчин език в област: Благоевград.Template:Мртва врска
  18. ^ Преброяване 2011 – окончателни резултати, гл. ІІІ. Основни резултати, стр. 23.
  19. ^ 323 552 души е населението на Пиринско.
  20. ^ source
  21. ^ Over 70,000 Macedonian nationals have received Bulgarian citizenship between 2001 and 2018, or roughly 3.5% of the population.
  22. ^ в-к Труд, Март 26, 2017, В Благоевградска община има регистрирани 18 хиляди македонци.
  23. ^ (in Bulgarian) Population to 01.03.2001 by District and Mother Tongue from Bulgarian National Statistical Institute: Census 2001 Archived 2017-11-10 at the Wayback Machine
  24. ^ ""Religious composition: 2011 census"". pop-stat.mashke.org. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  25. ^ (in Bulgarian) Religious adherence in Bulgaria - census 2001 Archived 2010-09-07 at the Wayback Machine

Sources

  • Who are the Macedonians? by Hugh Poulton. London: 1995.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blagoevgrad_Province&oldid=1185644946"