The separation of the two parts of Bulgaria should be easy and simple task – for north – south we have Balkan Mountains, for east – the west – Ya (Yatovata) border. Is it the same with the country’s population? If we divide the population – 7,364,570 people, according to census 2011 in two equal parts – from 3 682 285, where it will pass such a border?
Still, 17.5% or 1 / 6th of the population live in the capital, which should move the border to the two equal halves west of the center. Since I used the municipalities as a unit for the population, the east-west border seems very curvy, but if I have to summarize it in a “straight line” it will be from Nikopol, Lovech, Troyan, Sopot, Plovdiv to Smolyan…
Indeed, because of Sofia from the west to the east in 121 municipalities live 3 681 687 people or 42% of the country’s territory, while in the east are the remaining 144 municipalities in the remaining 48% territory. If we try to divide the north-south country, north of the Stara Planina mountain only 2.5 millions of a population live. The border of 3 682 285 inhabitants starts from Tran, through Breznik and the northern Sofia districts, through Elin Pelin and along the ridge of Sredna Gora, between Sliven and Yambol to Bourgas (which is in the northern part).
From the north that includes 160 municipalities and 8 metropolitan areas (Bankya, Vrabnica, Ilinden, Kremikovtzi, Lyulin, Nadezhda, Novi Iskar and Serdika) and 59% of the country’s territory, and from the south – 104 municipalities and the remaining 16 metropolitan areas. I decided to divide the population of Sofia in areas because in Metropolitan Municipality live still 1/3 of the population who try to divide and boundary would be southwest – northeast from Sofia – Pernik to Ruse if it was only at the municipal division.
If you ask to sum up half the population starting from the largest municipality (Sofia), down the statistics only 18 (18.2 if more precise) urban municipalities (7% of the municipalities in Bulgaria) and an area of 10.5% of the country’s territory are home to over 3 million and a half citizens. These are also the 18 largest province centers.
But the most interesting was the attempt to connect the first three largest cities / municipalities as uninterrupted territory – in this case from Sofia to Varna via Plovdiv. Following the Trakia highway and the municipalities between Bourgas and Varna, plus some of the sub-Balkan fields in 52 municipalities live a little over half of the population. The area includes the Upper Thracian Plain, large valleys – Sofia, Karlovo, Kazanlak, Sliven and coastal municipalities on the eastern slopes of Stara Planina. This is only 25% of the country’s territory.
What if we split the population of Bulgaria into two equal parts
Previous articleUrban and municipal transport from OpenStreetMaps in Bulgaria
Next article Fusion Tables is retiring. And what to do with all these tables now?

