Sliven Oblast

Sliven Province (Област Сливен Oblast Sliven, former name Sliven okrug) is a province in southeastern Bulgaria, named after its administrative and industrial centre - the city of Sliven. It embraces a territory of 3,544.1 km² that is divided into 4 municipalities, with a total population, as of December 2009, of 204,887 inhabitants.

Municipalities
The Sliven province (oбласт, oblast) contains four municipalities (singular: oбщина, obshtina - plural: oбщини, obshtini). The following table shows the names of each municipality in English and Cyrillic, the main town or village (towns are shown in bold), and the population of each as of December 2009.

Main city
Sliven is situated at the foot of the unique rock massif "Sinite Kamani" (The Blue Rocks), very close to mineral springs. The town is famous for its clean fresh air, clean water sources, mild winter and cool summer.

Sliven is the only Bulgarian town that has never changed its Slavonic name, though it is one of the oldest settlements in Europe. Here lived Thracians, Romans, Slavs, and Ancient Greeks. The first Roman settlement on this place - Tuida ( The 3rd century BC) was a famous trade centre. Sliven was mentioned as a big town for the first time in 1153 by the Arab traveller Idrisi.

Demography




According to the 2001 census, the province had a population of 218 474 inhabitants, of whom 163 188 were Bulgarians, 22 971 Turks, 26 777 Roma, etc. As of the end of 2009, the population of the province, announced by the Bulgarian National Statistical Institute, numbered 204,887 of which 22.3% are inhabitants aged over 60 years.

The following table represents the change of the population in the province after World War II:

Religion
Religious adherence in the province according to 2001 census:

Nature Park Sinite Kamani - The Blue Rocks
The Sinite Kamani Nature Park is famous for its nature landmarks. Halkata – the arc-shaped rock garland, possessing, according to the legends, magic force - is one of the symbols of the town of Sliven. The forms that the nature has sculptured in the cave Zmeevi dupki – Zmejat, Orelat and Vladishkija tron are amazing.

The ancient beech forest in the vicinity of the Kushbunar spring in the region of Karandila is quite picturesque.

The specific climate and lay conditions of the nature park determine the great diversity of flora and fauna. The plant species are more than 1000, about 900 of which are representative of high species.

The invertebrate animals are represented by 235 species – eight species of fish, nine species of amphibians, nineteen species of reptiles, 165 species of birds and 34 species of mammals.

The lay is of typical mountain type – steep and ravine slopes and at sea level between 290 and 1181 meters above the sea level. The north and northwest winds, the wind called bora, famous also as the wind of the town of Sliven and the night breeze are typical for the region. Through the park flow many rivers and their beds form numerous shoots, pools and waterfalls.