Bulgaria: GEOGRAPHY

GEOGRAPHY



Location: Bulgaria is located in southeastern Europe, northwest of

Turkey, south of Romania, north of Greece, and east of Serbia and

Macedonia.



Size: The total area of Bulgaria is 110,910 square kilometers, of which

110,550 square kilometers is land surface.



Land Boundaries: Bulgaria has land borders with the following countries: Greece, 494 kilometers; Macedonia, 148 kilometers; Romania, 608 kilometers; Serbia and Montenegro, 318 kilometers; and Turkey, 240 kilometers.



Length of Coastline: Bulgaria has a coastline of 354 kilometers along the Black Sea.



Maritime Claims: Bulgaria claims a territorial sea of 12 nautical miles, a contiguous zone of 24 nautical miles, and an exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles.



Topography: More than two-thirds of Bulgaria’s territory is plains and hills with an elevation of less than 600 meters. The main characteristic of Bulgaria’s topography is alternating bands of high and low terrain extending east to west across the country. From north to south, those bands are the Danubian Plain, which runs along both sides of the border with Romania; the Balkan Mountains; the Thracian Plain; and the Rhodope Mountains. The southern edge of the Danubian Plain slopes upward into the foothills of the Balkans, which are highest in the western part of the country. The Thracian Plain is roughly triangular, beginning near Sofia in the west and broadening as it reaches the Black Sea coast. The Rhodopes include two smaller ranges in southwestern Bulgaria, the Pirin and the Rila. Bulgaria’s highest peak, Mt. Musala (2,975 meters), is in the Rila. Bulgaria’s lowest point is sea level, along the Black Sea coast.



Principal Rivers: Bulgaria’s only navigable river is the Danube, which runs 484 kilometers across the northern border. The Iskŭr River, at 400 kilometers the longest river within Bulgaria, flows northward from the Rila and through Sofia before joining the Danube. Networks of smaller rivers to the east of the Iskŭr also flow from the mountains into the Danube. The other major river, the Maritsa, flows 272 kilometers eastward from its source in the Rila before crossing southward in southeastern Bulgaria to define the border between neighboring Greece and Turkey.



Climate: Considering its relatively small size, Bulgaria has substantial climatic variation because it is located at the meeting point of Mediterranean and continental air masses and because its mountains partition climatic zones. Continental air, which moves easily across the open Danubian Plain in the north, dominates Bulgaria’s winter weather and brings substantial snowfall. In summer Mediterranean air masses are more dominant, bringing hot and dry weather to the Rhodopes and the Thracian Plain. The Black Sea also is a moderating weather influence. Because of the mountain barriers, northern Bulgaria averages 1° C cooler and has nearly 200 millimeters more of average annual precipitation than southern Bulgaria. Bulgaria’s average annual precipitation is 630 millimeters, with the Black Sea Coast, the Thracian Plain, and the Danubian Plain receiving less. In Sofia the average winter temperature is –2° C, and the average summer temperature is 21° C.



Natural Resources: Bulgaria has large areas of high-quality arable land and forests. A wide variety of mineral resources, not including petroleum, are present. Copper, gold, iron, lead, and zinc are extracted commercially. Among nonmetallic materials extracted for industrial purposes are dolomite, gypsum, kaolin, marble, quartzite, and refractory clay.



Land Use: Approximately 40 percent of Bulgaria’s land area is rated as arable, and about 2 percent of the total area is devoted to permanent crops. Some 8,000 square kilometers are irrigated.

Environmental Factors: Like other countries in the Soviet sphere, Bulgaria strongly emphasized heavy industry and intensive agriculture but did not mitigate the environmental consequences of such a policy. As a result, in the early 1990s an estimated 60 percent of agricultural land was polluted by fertilizers and pesticides, two-thirds of rivers were polluted, and two-thirds of primary forests had been leveled. Although environmental awareness improved in the post-communist era, the state’s lack of administrative strength and fears of unemployment prevented the curtailment of many dangerous practices. For example, the four reactors of Bulgaria’s only nuclear power station at Kozloduy were declared unsafe in the early 1990s, but the first reactor closure occurred only in 2003.



Because cleanup has been economically problematic in the post-communist era, in the mid-2000s Bulgaria still had grave environmental crises. Among them were air pollution from industrial emissions; the inability to filter effluents into rivers, leading to concentrations of untreated sewage, heavy metals, and detergents; severely depleted natural forest cover; forest damage from air pollution and resulting acid rain; and soil contamination by heavy metals resulting from improper industrial waste disposal. In the 1990s and early 2000s, a rapid increase in motor vehicles using leaded fuel exacerbated urban air pollution. The agency responsible for protection against all forms of environmental pollution is the Ministry of Environment and Water. The prospect of membership in the European Union (EU) is expected to raise Bulgaria’s environmental standards.



Time Zone: Bulgaria’s time zone is two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.