# Yablanitsa Municipality

Yablanitsa Municipality (Bulgarian: Община Ябланица) is a small municipality (obshtina) in Lovech Province, Central-North Bulgaria, located in the area of the so-called Fore-Balkan, north of Stara Planina mountain. It is named after its administrative centre - the town of Yablanitsa.
The municipality embraces a territory of 276 km$^2$ (107 sq mi) with a population of 6,427 inhabitants, as of December 2009.
As of 2010, the west operating part of Hemus motorway ends near the main town. The motorway is planned to connect the capital city of Sofia with the port of Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast.

## Settlements

Yablanitsa Municipality includes the following 9 places (towns are shown in bold):
| Town/Village | Cyrillic | Population (December 2009) |
| Yablanitsa | Ябланица | 2,896 |
| Batultsi | Батулци | 205 |
| Brestnitsa | Брестница | 1,062 |
| Dobrevtsi | Добревци | 547 |
| Dabravata | Дъбравата | 88 |
| Golyama Brestnitsa | Голяма Брестница | 182 |
| Malak Izvor | Малък извор | 243 |
| Oreshene | Орешене | 332 |
| Zlatna Panega | Златна Панега | 872 |
| Total | | 6,427 |

## Demography

The following table shows the change of the population during the last four decades.
Yablanitsa Municipality :
| Year | 1975 | 1985 | 1992 | 2001 | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011 |
| Population | 9,411 | 8,243 | 7,532 | 6,902 | 6,705 | 6,556 | 6,427 | ... |
| Sources: Census 2001, Census 2011, „pop-stat.mashke.org“, |||||||||

### Vital statistics

The municipality of Yablanitsa has one of the highest birth rate in Bulgaria. Especially Roma people in some villages tend to have high fertility rates.
| | Population | Live births | Deaths | Natural growth | Birth rate (‰) | Death rate (‰) | Natural growth rate (‰) |
| 2000 | 7,195 | 81 | 138 | -57 | 11.3 | 19.2 | -7.9 |
| 2001 | 6,822 | 91 | 136 | -45 | 13.3 | 19.9 | -6.6 |
| 2002 | 6,816 | 94 | 132 | -38 | 13.8 | 19.4 | -5.6 |
| 2003 | 6,836 | 102 | 116 | -14 | 14.9 | 17.0 | -2.0 |
| 2004 | 6,751 | 90 | 124 | -34 | 13.3 | 18.4 | -5.0 |
| 2005 | 6,705 | 95 | 114 | -19 | 14.2 | 17.0 | -2.8 |
| 2006 | 6,629 | 94 | 100 | -6 | 14.2 | 15.1 | -0.9 |
| 2007 | 6,556 | 89 | 98 | -9 | 13.6 | 14.9 | -1.4 |
| 2008 | 6,451 | 83 | 104 | -21 | 12.9 | 16.1 | -3.3 |
| 2009 | 6,427 | 102 | 92 | 10 | 15.9 | 14.3 | 1.6 |
| 2010 | 6,334 | 85 | 137 | -52 | 13.4 | 21.6 | -8.2 |
| 2011 | 6,210 | 82 | 100 | -18 | 13.2 | 16.1 | -2.9 |
| 2012 | 6,150 | 81 | 112 | -31 | 13.2 | 18.2 | -5.0 |
| 2013 | 6,092 | 85 | 106 | -21 | 14.0 | 17.4 | -3.4 |
| 2014 | 6,017 | 76 | 102 | -26 | 12.6 | 17.0 | -4.3 |
| 2015 | 5,971 | 66 | 103 | -37 | 11.1 | 17.3 | -6.2 |
| 2016 | 5,902 | 67 | 111 | -44 | 11.4 | 18.8 | -7.5 |
| 2017 | 5,786 | 82 | 136 | -54 | 14.2 | 23.5 | -9.3 |
| 2018 | 5,727 | 76 | 105 | -29 | 13.3 | 18.3 | -5.1 |
| 2019 | 5,607 | 58 | 118 | -60 | 10.3 | 21.0 | -10.7 |
| 2020 | 5,742 | 77 | 102 | -25 | 13.4 | 17.8 | -4.4 |
| 2021 | 5,632 | 76 | 150 | -74 | 13.5 | 26.6 | -13.1 |

### 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 Yablanitsa Municipality
Orthodox Christianity
88.9%
Catholicism
0.6%
Protestantism
0.6%
Islam
0.5%
No religion
4.1%
Prefer not to answer, others and aindefinable
5.3% :