General information:
Embaixada da Bulgária
embassy.brasilia@mfa.bg
secretaria.brasilia@bgembassy.com.br
Endereço: SEN Av. das Nações, Quadra 801, Lote 8
Brasília – DFCEP: 70432-900
Tel.: (61) 3223-6193 / 9849
Emergências: (61) 98602-3360
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is
situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north,
Serbia and North Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the
Black Sea to the east. Bulgaria covers a territory of 110,994 square kilometres, and is
the sixteenth-largest country in Europe. Sofia is the nation's capital and largest city.
The Bulgars, a Central Asian Turkic tribe, merged with the local Slavic inhabitants in
the late 7th century to form the first Bulgarian state. In succeeding centuries, Bulgaria
struggled with the Byzantine Empire to assert its place in the Balkans, but by the end of
the 14th century the country was overrun by the Ottoman Turks.
Emerging from centuries of Ottoman rule, after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78,
Bulgaria gained its independence in the late 19th century. It entered into alliances with
Germany in both world wars. In 1946, Bulgaria came under the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc
and became a socialist state. The ruling Communist Party gave up its monopoly on
power after the revolutions of 1989 and allowed multiparty elections. Bulgaria then
transitioned into a democracy and a market-based economy. Since adopting a
democratic constitution in 1991, Bulgaria has been a unitary parliamentary republic
composed of 28 provinces, with a high degree of political, administrative, and economic
centralization.
Bulgaria is a developing country, with an upper-middle-income economy, ranking 68th
in the Human Development Index. Its market economy is part of the European Single
Market and is largely based on services, followed by industry—especially machine
building and mining—and agriculture. Widespread corruption is a major socioeconomic
issue; Bulgaria ranked as the most corrupt country in the European Union in 2018. The
country also faces a demographic crisis, with its population slowly shrinking, down from
a peak of nearly nine million in 1988, to roughly 6.5 million today. Bulgaria is a member
of the European Union, NATO, and the Council of Europe; it is also a founding member
of the OSCE, and has taken a seat on the United Nations Security Council three times.
