The Kostenets municipality ( bg, Община Костенец) is one of the 22 municipalities of the

Sofia Province Sofia Province ( bg, Софийска област, translit=Sofiyska oblast) is a province (''oblast'') of Bulgaria. The province does not include Sofia in its territories, but Sofia remains its administrative center. The province borders on t ...

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 Macedon ...

. The extent of the territory is 302 km² and it had 14,154 inhabitants as of 2009. It encompasses the Valley of

Gorna Banya Gorna Banya ( bg, Горна баня) is a neighbourhood in Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria. It is one of the city's oldest villa zones. The town is part of Sofia's Ovcha kupel, Ovcha Kupel (Bulgarian: Овча купел) administrative d ...

, along the upper flow of the

Maritsa Maritsa or Maritza ( bg, Марица ), also known as Meriç ( tr, Meriç ) and Evros ( ell, Έβρος ), is a river that runs through the Balkans in Southeast Europe. With a length of ,Rila Rila ( bg, Рила, ) is the highest mountain range of Bulgaria, the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula and Southeast Europe. It is situated in southwestern Bulgaria and forms part of the Rila–Rhodope Mountains, Rhodope Massif. The highest summit is Mus ...

to the south and

Sredna Gora Sredna Gora ( bg, Средна гора ) is a mountain range in central Bulgaria, situated south of and parallel to the Balkan Mountains and extending from the Iskar to the west and the elbow of Tundzha north of Yambol to the east. Sredna Gora ...

to the north. The region has many warm mineral springs in the spa resorts of Momin Prohod, Momina Banya,

Kostenets Kostenets ( bg, Костенец ) is a town in Sofia Province in southwestern Bulgaria, and the administrative centre of the Kostenets Municipality (which also contains a separate village of Kostenets). The town is situated at the foot of Rila ...

and Pchelinski Bani. The municipality has an important transport location with the

Trakiya motorway The Trakia motorway (, ) or Thrace motorway, designated A1, is a motorway in Bulgaria. It connects the capital city of Sofia, the city of Plovdiv and the city of Burgas on the Black Sea coast. The motorway is named after the historical region of ...

, the first class road

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...

Plovdiv Plovdiv ( bg, Пловдив, ), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the c ...

and the

railway passing through it.

Settlements

The municipality has nine settlements (2 towns and 7 villages) with a total population of 14,154 people (as of 2009-03-15) The place names in bold have the status of

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

(in Bulgarian: град, transliterated as ''grad''). Other localities have the status of

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

(in Bulgarian: село, transliterated as ''selo''). The names of localities are transliterated in

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

,Kostenets Municipality
at Guide-Bulgaria.com - reference for location names followed in parentheses by the original name in Bulgarian

Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

(which links to the corresponding Bulgarian Wikipedia article).

Demography

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:

References

Municipalities in Sofia Province {{Bulgaria-geo-stub