Bulgaria, is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. With a territory of 110,994
square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), Bulgaria is Europe's 14th-largest country.
Prehistoric cultures began
developing on Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period. Its
ancient history saw the presence of the Thracians, and later the Greeks and Romans. The emergence of a unified Bulgarian state
dates back to the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 681 AD, which
dominated most of the Balkans and
functioned as a cultural hub for Slavic peoples during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Second
Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for nearly
five centuries. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878
created the Third Bulgarian State. The following years saw several conflicts
with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both World
Wars. In 1946 it became a Socialist state with a
single-party system. In 1989 the Communist Party allowed multi-party
elections, following which Bulgaria transitioned to democracy and a market-based economy.
The population of 7.36
million people is predominantly urban and mainly concentrated in the
administrative centres of its 28 provinces. Most commercial and
cultural activities are concentrated in the capital Sofia. The strongest sectors of the economy are heavy
industry, power engineering, and agriculture, all relying on local natural
resources.
The current political
structure dates to the adoption of a democratic constitution in 1991. Bulgaria
is a unitary
parliamentary republic with a high degree of political, administrative, and
economic centralisation. It is a member of the European Union, NATO, and the Council of Europe; a founding state of the Organization
for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); and has taken a seat at the
UN Security Council three
times.
One of the three primary ancestral groups of modern Bulgarians were the
Thracians, who populated various
tribes until king Teres united most
of them in the Odrysian kingdom around 500 BC. They were
eventually subjugated by Alexander the Great and later by the Roman Empire in 46 AD. After
the division of the Roman Empire in 5th century the area fell under Byzantine control.
By this time, Christianity
had already spread in the area. A small Gothic community in Nicopolis ad Istrum produced the first Germanic language
book in the 4th century, the Wulfila Bible. The first Christian monastery in
Europe was established around the same time by Saint Athanasius in
central Bulgaria. From the 6th
century the easternmost South
Slavs gradually settled in the region, assimilating the Hellenised or
Romanised Thracians.
