Political Geography
Bulgaria's political geography has changed greatly since the restoration of statehood in 1878. Russia, whose military victories had led to its creation, pushed for a "big Bulgaria" that would include much of Macedonia. At the Congress of Berlin, however, the powers insisted upon a much reduced area, divided until 1885 between the principalities of Bulgaria proper and Eastern Rumelia.
An independent kingdom from 1908 to 1946 and thereafter a republic, Bulgaria sought to expand its territory in the two Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and in World Wars I and II. Defeat in the last three conflicts led to a large loss of territory in 1913 and 1919, though the 1940 recovery of the Southern Dobruja was confirmed by the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947.
Natural hazards: earthquakes, landslides
Environment - current issues: air pollution from industrial emissions; rivers polluted from raw sewage, heavy metals, detergents; deforestation; forest damage from air pollution and resulting acid rain; soil contamination from heavy metals from metallurgical plants and industrial wastes
Environment - international agreements:
party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution (MARPOL 73/78), Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94
Read more about this topic: Geography Of Bulgaria
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or geography:
“The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)