Sofia — capital and largest city of Bulgaria

Location

Sofia is located in the Sofia Plain, a vast plateau in the west of the country, close to the border with Serbia. Five mountain passes lead to the plain and thus to Sofia - the Iskar Pass, the Vladaya Pass, the Dragoman Pass, the Petrokhan Pass and the Botevgrad Pass.

The city is located on the northern slope of the 2290 m high Vitosha Mountain, which is a popular destination for Sofia tourists and dominates the scenery of the whole city. The basic shape of the Vitosha Mountain is almost circular with a diameter of about 15 km. To the west, the city borders on the Lyulin and Losen Mountains.

To the north and northeast, at a distance of about 50 kilometres, run the Sofia Mountains and the Murgash Mountains, which are part of the Balkan Mountains that run east-west through the whole of Bulgaria, dividing the country into northern and southern halves. This mountain range is the namesake for the entire Balkan Peninsula.

The longest river in Bulgaria, the Iskar, flows through the eastern districts of the city. Two of its tributaries, the Perlowska and Wladajska also cross the city, but are hardly visible in the cityscape.

In the centre of Sofia, as in the districts of Ovcha Kupel, Knyazhevo, Gorna Banya and Pancharevo, there are mineral springs, the use of which has been proven since ancient times.

Climate

Sofia has a temperate continental climate. Due to the high altitude (550 m), winters are snowy and cold and summers are warm. The average annual temperature is 9.7 degrees Celsius, the average annual precipitation reaches 572 mm.

The warmest months are July and August with an average of 19.4 to 20.0 degrees Celsius and the driest are January and February with an average of 27 to 33 millimeters of precipitation. The greatest amount of precipitation is in May and June with an average of 73 to 75 millimeters. The coldest month is January with -1.6 degrees Celsius on average.

The Bulgarian capital is the foggiest city in the country, with about 33 days per year. A record for Bulgaria is 29 consecutive days of fog recorded in Sofia in December 1948.

Administrative structure

The city of Sofia is the center of the provinces of Sofia and Sofia City, as well as the Greater Sofia Municipality. The Great Municipality of Sofia geographically consists of the city of Sofia and three other towns and 34 villages.

Fifteen of the 24 rajons (Bulg. райони/rajoni) in the Sofia Grand Municipality include only parts of the city, 6 also include surrounding localities. Three of the municipality's rajons (Pancharevo, Novi Iskar and Bankya) include only areas outside the city limits, even though they are within Sofia City Province and fall under the jurisdiction of the Sofia Grand Municipality. Each of the rajons is divided into several districts and has a mayor elected by secret and direct ballot for a four-year term.

The boroughs are:

Population development

Ottoman tax registers (Defter) give quite precise information about the population development. Thus in 1523/4 about 6,000, in 1544/5 about 8,000 and at the end of the 16th century over 9,000 inhabitants lived in the city. Christian travellers around 1640 already estimated the number of inhabitants at 71,600, 15,000 of whom were Jews. This population remained constant throughout the 18th century, according to Occidental travelers. The Salnames of 1872/3 record a population of about 35,000.

In 1878, the year of Bulgaria's liberation, the population was 11,694, to grow again to about 20,000 by 1887. In 1910, the capital's population reached 100,000, making it a major city. In 1946, half a million people already lived in the city, and by 1975 this number had doubled to one million.

In the period from 1990 to 2001, the population declined, but has also stabilized due to numerous incorporations. In 1999, 45 percent of the rural population around Sofia depended on home-produced food. The movement from the countryside to the capital was therefore reversed. The continuing economic crisis forced a new subsistence economy, often with the simplest implements such as a sickle and plough, as only a few village communities had enough money to collectively purchase a tractor.

Below are the population figures according to the respective territorial status. Up to 2001 and for 2011, these are census results, and 2006 is an estimate by the National Statistics Institute (NSI).