January 6 (BTA) - According to a preliminary assessment, Bulgaria's population stood at 6,520,314 as at September 7, 2021, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) told a news conference on Thursday. The last four censuses showed a population decline, the biggest being registered in the 2021 census: by 844,000 people, or by 11.5 per cent compared to 2011, said Magdalena Kostova, head of the NSI Demographic and Social Policy Directorate.

Over 2,813,000 households were counted in last year's census, with 2.3 persons per household on average. As at September 7, 2021, women numbered 3,397,357 (52.1 per cent) and men, 3,122,957 (47.9 per cent).

The data are yet to be finalized, NSI head Sergey Tsvetarsky said, adding that the final data will be ready by the end of 2022.

Only some 34 per cent of the population took part in the census online, as a result of a series of complications. The data collected in person by the NSI counters is still being processed.

The population's distribution by age groups shows deepening of the ageing process, the NSI's preliminary assessment also shows. The share of people aged 65 and over is higher by 5.4 percentage points compared to 2011 and by 9.6 percentage points compared to 1992. The number and relative share of children and people of active age is decreasing.

As at September 7, 2021, Bulgaria had 5,257 settlements, of which 257 cities and 5,000 villages. A total of 4,843,175 people (74.3 per cent) lived in cities and 1,677,139 (25.7 per cent) in villages. Vidin Region remains the region with the smallest population, 74,000, while Sofia City Region has the biggest population, 1,480,000. Sofia City is also the only region whose population has grown since 2011, by 189,000 people (14.7 per cent). All other regions register a population decline, the smallest being observed in Plovdiv (by 8.3 per cent), Varna and Sofia (by 10 per cent each), and the biggest in Dobrich and Vidin (by 26.3 per cent each), and Montana (by 24.2 per cent).

Preliminary data from the housing census show 2,096,844 residential buildings, up by 1.8 per cent from 2011. Of these, 813,969 are in cities and 1,282,875 in villages. Dwellings number 4,182,383, up by 295,000 from 2011, Kostova said.

There are over 1,700 census areas out of Bulgaria's 33,000 that were not visited by the NSI counters, of which 1,500 in Sofia alone, due to lack of enough counters. Still, the capital saw the highest online participation in the census in Bulgaria, Kostova specified. Around 600 areas were partially covered by the census.

The hacker attacks against the NSI website during the 2021 census created a series of troubles, Tsvetarsky said. According to him, it has been proven that this traffic was malicious and artificially created.

LN/DS