Дългосрочни тенденции в селското обезлюдяване на България
Long term trends in rural depopulation of Bulgaria

Summary/Abstract: The intensive depopulation of rural areas in Bulgaria over the past seven decades has serious consequences on the integrity and scope of rural settlements network. During 1946-2016 nearly 1000 villages (17% of all rural settlements) disappear for one reason or another from map of the country. Between 160 and 200 completely depopulated villages (so called “ghost villages”) continue to appear in the Register of settlements, albeit gradually administratively deleted and replaced by new completely depopulated settlements as a result of their terminal biological depopulation. The article bellow is presenting an attempt to determine the pace of contraction of the rural settlement network in Bulgaria till 2050. Conclusions are based on the results of the linear extrapolation of the dynamics of the number of inhabitants in 5045 villages which has been existing during the Census in 2011. The basic hypothesis is that the possible dynamics of rural population change till 2050 will be the same as it was during 1946-2011. Although the results have only purely informative character due to the limitations of applied statistics and mathematical model, they give us a directions in which rural depopulation could escalate in Bulgaria at both national and regional (municipal) level.

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