The population of Bulgaria as of February 2011 is 7 364 570 people, of whom a third live in the country’s three biggest cities, Sofia, Varna and Plovdiv, according to the official results of this year’s census.

 

The results were announced at a news conference on July 21 2011.

 

Ethnic Bulgarians make up 84.8 per cent (5 664 624 people), ethic Turkish Bulgarians 8.8 per cent (588 318 people) and Roma 4.9 per cent (325 343 people), according to the census.

 

Of the overall population, 51.3 per cent are women and 48.7 per cent men.

 

About 72.5 per cent of the population live in cities. Sofia, which along with Varna has seen a population increase since the 2001 census, has 1 291 591 residents.

 

Sofia has seen a population increase of 10.3 per cent and Varna 2.8 per cent. The districts of Veliko Turnovo and Bourgas also have seen increases in population.

 

The biggest decreases in population have been in Lovetch (17.1 per cent), Vidin (16.2 per cent), Silistra (15.1 per cent) Razgrad (13 per cent) and Pleven (12.2 per cent).

 

Bourgas is the fourth-largest district, with 415 817 people, followed by Stara Zagora (333 265) and Blagoevgrad (232 552).

 

Census officials said that there were 255 cities and towns, together home to 5 339 001 people (72.5 per cent) and 50 047 villages, together with 2 025 569 residents (27.5 per cent) while in 181 settlements, the census recorded no people.

 

Twenty-one per cent of settlements had up to 50 residents and 36 per cent had between 100 and 500.

 

From people’s declarations of their religious affiliations, census officials concluded that Orthodox Christians made up 76 per cent of the population, Muslims 10 per cent. Protestants 1.1 per cent and Roman Catholics 0.8 per cent.