title: Balchik Municipality
text: # Balchik Municipality
  
  Balchik Municipality (Bulgarian: Община Балчик) is a municipality (obshtina) in Dobrich Province, Northeastern Bulgaria, located on the Northern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in Southern Dobruja geographical region. It is named after its administrative centre - the town of Balchik.
  
  The municipality embraces a territory of 523 $km^2$ (202 sq mi) with a population of 19,331 inhabitants, as of 2018.
  
  The area is best known with the Balchik Palace complex in the main town as well as the luxury seaside resort of Albena. The main road E87 crosses the municipality connecting the port of Varna with the Romanian port of Konstanza.
  
  ## Settlements
  
  Balchik Municipality includes the following 22 places (towns are shown in bold):
  
  | Town/Village | Cyrillic | Population (December 2009) |
  | - | - | - |
  | Balchik | Балчик | 12,196 |
  | Bezvoditsa | Безводица | 383 |
  | Bobovets | Бобовец | 86 |
  | Bryastovo | Брястово | 4 |
  | Dropla | Дропла | 304 |
  | Dabrava | Дъбрава | 216 |
  | Gurkovo | Гурково | 560 |
  | Hrabrovo | Храброво | 99 |
  | Karvuna | Карвуна | 62 |
  | Kranevo | Кранево | 1,233 |
  | Kremena | Кремена | 128 |
  | Lyahovo | Ляхово | 444 |
  | Obrochishte | Оброчище | 2,411 |
  | Prespa | Преспа | 248 |
  | Rogachevo | Рогачево | 263 |
  | Senokos | Сенокос | 661 |
  | Sokolovo | Соколово | 1,004 |
  | Strazhitsa | Стражица | 468 |
  | Trigortsi | Тригорци | 192 |
  | Tsarichino | Царичино | 159 |
  | Tsarkva | Църква | 364 |
  | Zmeevo | Змеево | 347 |
  | Total | | 21,832 |
  
  ## Demography
  
  The following table shows the change of the population during the last four decades.
  
  Balchik Municipality :
  
  | Year | 1975 | 1985 | 1992 | 2001 | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011 |
  | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
  | Population | 24,254 | 23,978 | 22,367 | 22,354 | 22,038 | 21,962 | 21,832 | ... |
  | Sources: Census 2001, Census 2011, „pop-stat.mashke.org“, |||||||||
  
  ### 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:
  
  Religious composition of Balchik Municipality
  
  Orthodox Christianity
  
  65.3%
  
  Catholicism
  
  0.5%
  
  Protestantism
  
  0.5%
  
  Islam
  
  20.0%
  
  No religion
  
  4.1%
  
  Prefer not to answer, others and indefinable
  
  9.6% :
  
  