* As of 6/9/2025
1 birth
Every 8.7 minutes
1 death
Every 5.1 minutes
1 emigrant
Every 3.0 hours
1 person
Every 11.6 minutes
Approximately 85% of the population is Bulgarian, with other major ethnic groups being Turkish (8.8%), Roma (4.9%) and about 40 small minority groups totaling 0.7%. Bulgarian is the official language of the country, and it is the native language for over 85% of the country’s residents.
Free public education in primary and secondary schools has contributed to the literacy rate of 98.6%.
While Bulgaria has a universal healthcare system, the poor quality of health facilities and the lack of medical personnel such as nurses is cause for many residents to seek medical treatment in other countries.
The life expectancy of 74.5 is ranked 78th in the world.
There are 1,053 females for every 1,000 males. Life expectancy for females in Bulgaria is 78 years, while the number drops to just 71.1 for males.
Bulgaria is a secular country, however, its constitution names Orthodox Christianity as a traditional religion and one that was followed by almost 60% of the population as of 2011. A 2018 update gives a breakdown of approximately 59.4% Eastern Orthodox following, Muslim at 7.8%, and other religions at 1.7%.
The Bulgarian economy is a free market, upper-middle-income, and industrialized. The most profitable industries in Bulgaria are in energy, mining, metallurgy, machine building, agriculture, and tourism. Post-communist-era in the 1980s, the economy shifted from exporting all of the aforementioned, towards producing biochemicals and computers. The national currency is called the lev and is worth roughly half of one euro.
The political system in Bulgaria is a parliamentary representative democratic republic, meaning that there is a Prime minister that leads all of the government and the nation’s multi-party system. The president is elected by the people to serve a five-year term, and their primary roles include being the Commander in Chief of the military and maintaining foreign relations. The executive portion of the government is made up of the Council of Minister which is appointed by the National Assembly, which is made up of 240 elected members serving 4-year terms. The legislative branch is a single-chambered parliament. The judiciary is made up of regional courts, district courts and appeal courts.
Humans have lived in the area that is now Bulgaria, for thousands of years, and the region was part of some of the major empires throughout history including Byzantine and Ottoman. Bulgaria declared itself an independent kingdom in 1908.
Bulgaria lost more people per capita than any other country in World War II, suffering over 100,000 casualties. Germany occupied the area during the Second World War, and Bulgaria created a new constitution as a one-party state when the war ended. The newly formed Communist Party was lead by Todor Zhivkov, who later became president in 1971. In the mid-1980s, Zhivkov began forcing Turks in the country to assimilate and take Slavic names, causing roughly 300,000 people to leave the country.
