Demographic Potential and Problems of the Settlements Network in the Mountains of Bulgaria - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 163

Planina, which was 45.2% of the total mountainous population of Bulgaria, 579,200
dilate people (29.9%) inhabited the Rodopi mountains, 194,100 people (10%) lived
in Rila and Pirin, 175,600 people (9.2%) in Sredna Gora and 113,900 people (5.7%)
inhabited the rest of the mountains.
In many mountainous regions, the trends of population number decrease and
its concentration in urban areas is still strong. Decrease in population number is a
trend spread out in all mountains as a consequence of natural decrease, ageing and
emigration. The significant reduction of the number of population in the Rodopi
Mountains is due to emigration of ethnic Turks in 1989 and the years that followed.
Depopulation in some mountains has taken staggering proportions, which requires
urgent and decisive actions by the state authorities. Within the mountain regions
themselves, the scale of depopulation is even larger.
From a quantitative point of view, in most mountainous areas, number of popu-
lation (and its density) is appropriate, in terms of rational utilization and enrichment
of the natural and socio-economic potential of those regions. It is only in the Eastern
and Western Rodopi Mountains and in Eastern Stara planina, where the number of
population exceeds the current demand - those are the municipalities of Satovcha,
Garmen, Borino, Ruen, Kirkovo, etc. From a qualitative point of view (especially
when labour force is concerned), the population in mountainous regions is far behind
that of the non-mountainous areas. This applies especially for rural areas that lost
a significant part of their population in the years after 1975 - central Stara planina
region, Western Border areas and Strandzha-Sakar region.
The trends in reproduction of the mountainous population and the population of
the country as a whole are generally the same. However, within the various moun-
tainous regions, the population reproduction differs significantly from the general
trends, and has its specific features. As opposed to the past, average birth rates
of the mountainous population are now lower than the national average, while the
death rates and the natural increase (decrease) are similar to the national average.
Compared to earlier periods, when the natural increase was much higher, since 1993
a process of natural decrease has begun. The spatial discrepancies in birth and death
rates tend to become more and more insignificant. Higher than the national aver-
age birth rates are estimated in the Rodopi Mountains, Rila, Pirin and Strandzha (in
the latter, this is only due to the high relative share of urban population). The lowest
birth rates are measured in Sakar (5.9‰) and the Western Border Mountains (6.3‰).
At the same time, in those two regions the death rates are the highest -23.9‰ in
Sakar mountain and 21.9‰ in the Western Border Mountains, while in the Rodopi
Mountains the death rates are the lowest, due mostly to the younger age structure of
the population there. Just the opposite, in Sakar and the Western Border Mountains,
due to the considerable ageing of the population, levels of natural decrease are the
highest - higher than 15‰ (in other words, natural increase of -15‰), as opposed to
that in the Rodopi Mountains, where the natural increase of the population reaches
2.1‰. Demographic ageing, therefore, has a key role in the significant lowering of
birth rates and growth of death rates (Figs. 13.4 , 13.5 , and 13.6 ).
The mountainous population in Bulgaria as a whole distinguishes for its rela-
tively high migration mobility. While in the past the migration flows were directed
from rural mountainous areas to local urban centres and in a lesser extent to other