Provinces of Bulgaria

The provinces of Bulgaria Bulgarian: области на България, romanized:  are a first-level administrative subdivisions of the country.

Since 1999, Bulgaria has been divided into 28 provinces Bulgarian: области – oblasti; singular: област – oblast; also translated as "regions" which correspond approximately to the 28 districts in Bulgarian: окръг – okrǎg, plural: окръзи – okrǎzi, that existed previously 1987.

The provinces are further subdivided into 265 municipalities singular: община – obshtina, plural: общини – obshtini.

Sofia – the capital city of Bulgaria and the largest settlement in the country – is the administrative centre of both Sofia Province and Sofia City Province Sofia-grad. The capital is intended together with three other cities plus 34 villages in Sofia Capital Municipality over 90% of whose population lives in Sofia, which is the sole municipality comprising Sofia City province.

Terminology

The provinces draw not hold official tag – legally in the President's decree on their constitution, they are not named but only spoke as "oblast with administrative centre [Noun]" – together with a list of the constituting municipalities. In Bulgaria they are ordinarily called "[Adjective] Oblast"; occasionally they are referred to as "Oblast [Noun]" and rarely as "oblast with administrative centre [Noun]".

The Bulgarian term "област" oblast is preferably translated into English as "province", in lines to avoid disambiguation and distinguish from the former detail called "окръг" okrag, translated as "district" and the term "регион" always translated as "region". At any rate, "district" and "region" are sometimes still used to name these contemporary 28 units.