Belogradchik Municipality
# Belogradchik Municipality

Belogradchik Municipality (Bulgarian: Община Белоградчик) is a municipality (obshtina) in Vidin Province, Northwestern Bulgaria, located in the western parts of the so-called Fore-Balkan area. It is named after its administrative centre - the town of Belogradchik. To the west and southwest, the municipality borders on Republic of Serbia.

The area embraces a territory of 411 $km^2$ (159 sq mi) with a population of 7,045 inhabitants, as of December 2009.

The municipality is best known with the Belogradchik Rocks, impressive rock formations located just south of the main town as well as the medieval Belogradchik Fortress situated in the same rocky area. Another place of interest is the Magura Cave, with its beautiful prehistoric cave paintings.

## Settlements

Belogradchik Municipality includes the following 18 places (towns are shown in bold):

| Town/Village | Cyrillic | Population (December 2009) |
| - | - | - |
| Belogradchik | Белоградчик | 5,334 |
| Borovitsa | Боровица | 195 |
| Chiflik | Чифлик | 128 |
| Dabravka | Дъбравка | 77 |
| Granitovo | Гранитово | 66 |
| Granichak | Граничак | 19 |
| Krachimir | Крачимир | 26 |
| Oshane | Ошане | 71 |
| Prauzhda | Праужда | 74 |
| Prolaznitsa | Пролазница | 18 |
| Rabisha | Рабиша | 312 |
| Rayanovtsi | Раяновци | 144 |
| Salash | Салаш | 217 |
| Slivovnik | Сливовник | 26 |
| Stakevtsi | Стакевци | 233 |
| Struindol | Струиндол | 23 |
| Veshtitsa | Вещица | 53 |
| Varba | Върба | 29 |
| Total | | 7,045 |

## Demography

The following table shows the change of the population during the last four decades.

Belogradchik Municipality :

| Year | 1975 | 1985 | 1992 | 2001 | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011 |
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Population | 12,255 | 11,048 | 9,896 | 8,217 | 7,553 | 7,270 | 7,045 | 6,602 |
| Sources: Census 2001, Census 2011, „pop-stat.mashke.org“, |||||||||

### Religion

According to the latest Bulgarian census of 2011, the religious composition, among those who answered the optional question on religious identification, was the following:

Religious composition of Belogradchik Municipality

Orthodox Christianity

71.7%

Catholicism

0.3%

Protestantism

0.6%

Islam

0.1%

No religion

19.2%

Prefer not to answer, others and indefinable

8.1% :

An overwhelming majority of the population of Belogradchik Municipality identify themselves as Christians. At the 2011 census, 71.7% of respondents identified as Orthodox Christians belonging to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

