Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition | Page 8

united Bulgaria, 37,240 sq. m. According to the census of the 12th of January 1906, the population of northern Bulgaria was 2,853,704; of Eastern Rumelia, 1,174,535; of united Bulgaria, 4,028,239 or 88 per sq. m. Bulgaria thus ranks between Rumania and Portugal in regard to area; between the Netherlands and Switzerland in regard to population: in density of population it may be compared with Spain and Greece.
The first census of united Bulgaria was taken in 1888: it gave the total population as 3,154,375. In January 1893 the population was 3,310,713; in January 1901, 3,744,283.
The movement of the population at intervals of five years has been as follows:--
--------------------------------------------------------------------- | Year. | Marriages. | Births | Still- | Deaths. | Natural | | | |(living). | born. | |Increase.[1]| --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1882 | 19,795 | 74,642 | 300 | 38,884 | 35,758 | | 1887 | 20,089 | 83,179 | 144 | 39,396 | 43,783 | | 1892 | 27,553 | 117,883 | 321 | 103,550 | 14,333 | | 1897 | 29,227 | 149,631 | 858 | 90,134 | 59,497 | | 1902 | 36,041 | 149,542 | 823 | 91,093 | 58,449 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Excess of births over deaths.
The death-rate shows a tendency to rise. In the five years 1882-1886 the mean death-rate was 18.0 per 1000; in 1887-1891, 20.4; in 1892-1896, 27.0; in 1897-1902, 23.92. Infant mortality is high, especially among the peasants. As the less healthy infants rarely survive, the adult population is in general robust, hardy and long-lived. The census of January 1901 gives 2719 persons of 100 years and upwards. Young men, as a rule, marry betore the age of twenty-five, girls before eighteen. The number of illegitimate births is inconsiderable, averaging only 0.12 of the total. The population according to sex in 1901 is given as 1,909,567 males and 1,834,716 females, or 51 males to 49 females. A somewhat similar disparity may be observed in the other countries of the Peninsula. Classified according to occupation, 2,802,603 persons, or 74.85% of the population, are engaged in agriculture; 360,834 in various productive industries; 118,824 in the service of the government or the exercise of liberal professions, and 148,899 in commerce. The population according to race cannot be stated with absolute accuracy, but it is approximately shown by the census of 1901, which gives the various nationalities according to language as follows:--Bulgars, 2,888,219; Turks, 531,240; Rumans, 71,063; Greeks, 66,635; Gipsies (Tziganes), 89,549; Jews (Spanish speaking), 33,661; Tatars, [v.04 p.0777] 18,884; Armenians, 14,581; other nationalities, 30,451. The Bulgarian inhabitants of the Peninsula beyond the limits of the principality may, perhaps, be estimated at 1,500,000 or 1,600,000, and the grand total of the race possibly reaches 5,500,000.
Ethnology.--The Bulgarians, who constitute 77.14% of the inhabitants of the kingdom, are found in their purest type in the mountain districts, the Ottoman conquest and subsequent colonization having introduced a mixed population into the plains.
The devastation of the country which followed the Turkish invasion resulted in the extirpation or flight of a large proportion of the Bulgarian inhabitants of the lowlands, who were replaced by Turkish colonists. The mountainous districts, however, retained their original population and sheltered large numbers of the fugitives. The passage of the Turkish armies during the wars with Austria, Poland and Russia led to further Bulgarian emigrations. The flight to the Banat, where 22,000 Bulgarians still remain, took place in 1730. At the beginning of the 19th century the majority of the population of the Eastern Rumelian plain was Turkish. The Turkish colony, however, declined, partly in consequence of the drain caused by military service, while the Bulgarian remnant increased, notwithstanding a considerable emigration to Bessarabia before and after the Russo-Turkish campaign of 1828. Efforts were made by the Porte to strengthen the Moslem element by planting colonies of Tatars in 1861 and Circassians in 1864. The advance of the Russian army in 1877-1878 caused an enormous exodus of the Turkish population, of which only a small proportion returned to settle permanently. The emigration continued after the conclusion of peace, and is still in progress, notwithstanding the efforts of the Bulgarian government to arrest it. In twenty years (1879-1899), at least 150,000 Turkish peasants left Bulgaria. Much of the land thus abandoned still remains unoccupied. On the other hand, a considerable influx of Bulgarians from Macedonia, the vilayet of Adrianople, Bessarabia, and the Dobrudja took place within the same period, and the inhabitants of the mountain villages show a tendency to migrate into the richer districts of the plains.
The northern slopes of the Balkans from Belogradchik to Elena are inhabited almost exclusively by Bulgarians; in Eastern Rumelia the national element is strongest in the Sredna Gora and Rhodope. Possibly the most genuine representatives of the race are the Pomaks or Mahommedan Bulgarians, whose conversion to Islam preserved their women from