Geoscience Reference
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is not quite optimal, for there is a great danger of unwanted quantitative changes
in the number of population, which would eventually lead to depopulation of vast
rural areas.
The natural conditions and resources of our mountains favour the development
of settlements network. More than half of the mountainous settlements (51%),
including the largest ones, are situated at an altitude up to 500 m, and 91% of the
settlements are located up to 1,000 m above sea level. Therefore, the altitude in gen-
eral does not represent an obstacle for their overall development. Rural settlements
are, in their great majority, small and many of them are of the scattered settle-
ments type. Typical small settlements municipalities are those of Troyan, Gabrovo,
Tryavna, Kilifarevo and Elena, in the northern slopes of the Central Stara planina
range, Shiroka Laka, Madan, Rudozem, Smilyan, Chernoochene and Ivaylovgrad -
in the Rodopi Mountains and Tran, Treklyano, Dragovishtitsa, Parvomay, etc. - in
other parts of the country. All of the larger and medium-sized towns, as well as
a significant part of the small towns, have a comparatively well-developed socio-
economic potential. The majority of the villages are provided with enough arable
land, conditions for tourism development, and fit-to-live-in houses. Along with
those however, there are many small villages with transport-unfavourable location,
poor arable land, difficult to get to, poor or lack of infrastructure, highly deteriorated
age structure and poor or no reproduction capability of the inhabitants. From eco-
nomic, social and aesthetic point of view, the existence of such settlements becomes
more and more unjustified, and those villages gradually drop out of the settlements
network. The majority of the mountainous settlements are located in limited-size
terrains, which apprehend their growth, require multi-storey buildings in the larger
towns and villages, as well as laying the transit transport infrastructure outside the
settlements' limits.
The transport accessibility of most mountainous settlements is good. It is
limited in some municipalities of the Central Stara planina region, such as
Tryavna, Kilifarevo and Elena. In those municipalities only 42% of the settle-
ments are accessible by asphalt roads, while 20% of the settlements can be reached
only by gravel-covered roads, and bus services cover a mere 36% of all set-
tlements. Rural settlements lacking convenient transport accessibility are, as a
rule, scarcely populated and the majority of those will eventually drop out of
the settlements network. Numerous villages in the Western Border Mountains,
Sakar, Strandzha and the Rodopi Mountains also have transport-unfavourable
location. More than 40% of the Rodopi Mountains settlements still have no con-
venient road accessibility (those are settlements located predominantly in Madan,
Banite, Nedelino, Smolyan, Kardzhali, Chernoochene, Momchilgrad, Krumovgrad,
Ivaylovgrad municipalities, etc.). Improvement of the road network and the
transport services is crucial for intensifying the development of mountainous
settlements.
The established demographic situation in Bulgarian mountains predetermines the
reproduction capabilities of their population. That applies for both the quantitative
and the qualitative parameters of human resources. The existing climatic, water,
forest and grass resources, in equal other conditions, would help out for sustaining
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