The Dospat Municipality is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in southwestern

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

and is one of the municipalities in the Smolyan Province.

Geography

It covers the southwestern Rhodope Mountains. 8 settlements belong to the municipality with a total of 8217 in 2016.

Demography

The municipality of Dospat lost a large part of its population since the

fall of communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...

in Bulgaria, due to emigration and more recently due to negative growth rate. As of 018, the municipality of Dospat had 7,932 inhabitants, down from 10,489 inhabitants in 1992. There were 64 children born in 2016, down from 91 compared to five years earlier. The number of deaths is 89 as of 2016, down from 105 in 2011. The natural population growth is minus 25 people, nearly double as many compared to minus 14 people in 2011.

Religion

Nearly half of the population did not answer the question on their religion; only a slight majority did answer the question. Of those people only 55 are Orthodox Christians, while the other part declared to be Muslim. That means that nearly all of the inhabitants with a religion are Muslims, especially

Bulgarian Muslims The Bulgarian Muslims or Muslim Bulgarians ( bg, Българи-мохамедани, ''Bǎlgari-mohamedani'', as of recently also Българи-мюсюлмани, ''Bǎlgari-mjusjulmani'', locally called ''Pomak'', ''ahryan'', ''poganets'', '' ...

or the so-called

Pomaks Pomaks ( bg, Помаци, Pomatsi; el, Πομάκοι, Pomáki; tr, Pomaklar) are Bulgarian-speaking Muslims inhabiting northwestern Turkey, Bulgaria and northeastern Greece. The c. 220,000 strong ethno-confessional minority in Bulgaria is ...

(89.0%) as Dospat is predominantly inhabited by ethnic

Bulgarians Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe. Etymology Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely unders ...

. Around 8.7% of the population preferred not to answer and a further 1.1% had no religion.

Settlements in the municipality

References

Smolyan Province Chech {{Smolyan-geo-stub