The Romanian

Romanians

The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

 minority in Bulgaria is concentrated in the northwestern part of the country, in the Provinces of: Vidin

Vidin Province

Vidin Province is the northwesternmost province of Bulgaria. It borders Serbia to the west and Romania to the northeast. Its administrative centre is the city of Vidin on the Danube river. The area is divided into 11 municipalities...

, Vratsa

Vratsa Province

Vratsa Province , former name Vratsa okrug) is a Bulgarian province located in the northwestern part of the country, between Danube river in the north and Stara Planina mountain in the south. It is named after its main town - Vratsa...

 and Pleven

Pleven Province

Pleven Province is a province located in central northern Bulgaria, bordering the Danube river, Romania and the Bulgarian provinces of Vratsa, Veliko Tarnovo and Lovech. It is divided into 11 subdivisions, called municipalities, that embrace a territory of 4,333.54 km² with a population, as...

. They speak the Oltenia

Oltenia

Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....

n variety of the Romanian language

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

. The Romanians from the Vidin Province are separated into 2 main groups: the "Dunăreni" (who live around the Danube river) and the "Pădureni" (who lived in the higher placed regions with many woods).
In southwestern Bulgaria lives also a very small Aromanian

Aromanians

Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...

 population, such as in the village Peshtera

Peshtera

Peshtera is a town in southwestern Bulgaria, part of Pazardzhik Province, located in the Upper Thracian Lowlands at the foot of the Western Rhodopes. It takes its name from the many caves found in the vicinity. The town is the administrative centre of the homonymous Peshtera Municipality...

.
The territory where the Romanians from Bulgaria live never belonged to Romania and most of them declare themselves "vlasi" (= Vlachs

Vlachs

Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...

) when asked in Bulgarian

Bulgarian language

Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

 (e.g. on the census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

), though they use the self-designation "rumân" (= Rumanians) in their language.
The Romanians in Bulgaria are not recognized as a national minority, but as an ethnic group and they don't enjoy ethnic rights in schools and churches since the Interwar period

Interwar period

Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....

.

Census figures

Year	Romanian speakers	Counted as Romanians
1881	49,070
1887	75,235
1905	89,847	79,910
1910	96,502	81,272
1920	75,065	66,944
1926	83,746	69,080
1934		16,504
1938		1,511
2001	10,566	1,088

1. The 2001 census shows 10,566 Vlachs
   Vlachs
   Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
   
   . Most of the Vlachs (Romanians) are Romanian
   Romanian language
   Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
   
   -speakers, but the figure includes some Aromanian
   Aromanian language
   Aromanian , also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe...
   
   -speakers as well.

See also

• Bulgarians in Romania
  Bulgarians in Romania
  Bulgarians are a recognized minority in Romania , numbering 8,025 according to the 2002 Romanian census, down from 9,851 in 1992. Despite their low census number today, Bulgarians from different confessional and regional backgrounds have had ethnic communities in various regions of Romania, and...
  
  
• Bulgarisation
  Bulgarisation
  Bulgarisation is a term used to describe a cultural change of the spread of Bulgarian culture within various areas in the Balkans....
  
  
• Thraco-Roman
  Thraco-Roman
  The terms Thraco-Roman and Daco-Roman refer to the culture and language of the Thracian and Dacian peoples who were incorporated into the Roman Empire and ultimately fell under the Roman and Latin sphere of influence.-Meaning and usage:...
  
  
• Eastern Romance substratum
  Eastern Romance substratum
  The Eastern Romance languages developed from the Proto-Romanian language, which in turn developed from the Vulgar Latin spoken in a region of the Balkans which has not yet been exactly determined, but is generally agreed to have been a region north of the Jireček Line.That there was...
  
  
• Romanian language
  Romanian language
  Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
  
  
• Origin of the Romanians
• Legacy of the Roman Empire
  Legacy of the Roman Empire
  The legacy of the Roman Empire refers to the set of cultural values, religious beliefs, as well as technological and other achievements of Ancient Rome which were passed on after the demise of the empire itself and continued to shape other civilizations, a process which continues to this day.-...
  
  

External links

• History of the Romanians living on the South of the Danube (Romanian/Bulgarian textbook for Romanians from Bulgaria)

in Romanian

• Românii din Bulgaria
• 35 de sate de români de "mâna a doua"
• Romana, limba de circulaţie internaţională
• Limba română moare pe malul bulgăresc
• "Oltenii" din Bulgaria
• Interviu cu Ivo Gheorghiev, preşedintele Uniunii Etnicilor Români din Bulgaria
• Coloniştii români timoceni din Cadrilater
• Articol despre mănăstirea Bacikovo
• Zilele folclorului românesc în Bulgaria
• Etnicii românii din Bulgaria cer sprijinul Consiliului Europei