Mountains and Mountain Regions in Bulgaria - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 37

• average weighted altitude of the municipality territory not less than 600 m;

average weighted slope of the terrain 10 ◦ (17.6%), average altitude for the
territory of the municipality not less than 600 m;

•

• average altitude for the territory of the municipality within the range from 500 to

600 m, combined with an average slope of the terrain of 7 ◦ (12.3%);

• in the attempt to homogenize the region, municipalities may be included, in

which at least one of the first two criteria shows significant height differences.

In the process of determination of the unfavourable regions (2005) the lowest level
of administrative division of the country is the municipality. The major arguments
in the selection of the groups of criteria for mountain region definition are:

• achievement of maximum range for the country;

• compatibility of the criteria with the respective ones of the EU countries;

• dependence of criteria selection on the databases, available for the country.

On the basis of this group of criteria, the mountain regions occupy 49% of the coun-
try's territory and 43% of the agricultural fund. They embrace about 95% of the
forest fund and cover the territory of 130; of which 88 are at an altitude exceeding
600 m, 25 - with a slope exceeding 10 ◦ , 1 - meets the requirements of a combined
criterion and 16 - correspond to the principle of homogenization of the mountain
regions.
All these documents take into account the natural characteristics of the coun-
try and accept the altitude of 600 m as the mountain regions' lower boundary.
Nevertheless, according to Regulation No 30 of the Council of Ministers from
February 15, 2008 , the mountain territories, defined as unfavourable territories,
include the lands of the settlements that meet at least one of the following

criteria:

• average altitude of minimum 700 m;

• average slope of the terrain of minimum 20%;

• average altitude of minimum 500 m in combination with an average terrain slope

of minimum 15%.

4.4 Results

By comparing the two divisions - the one from 2003 (2172 settlement areas incorpo-
rated in 138 municipalities) and the one from 2008 (1714 settlement areas belonging
to 144 municipalities), it became possible to draw an analytical map of the moun-
tain municipalities (Fig. 4.2 ). The comparison clearly shows the newly established
municipalities (13) in the 2008-division and those (7) which dropped out of the
2003 division. They all are presented with a limited number of adjacent mountain
land plots (1 or 2).