Total Productive Land Area
Excluding inhabited areas, rivers, and roads, the total land area that can be used productively in Bulgaria amounts to 7,413,749 hectares. Out of this, about 3,977,558 hectares belong to private owners.
Of the privately owned land:
3,428,467 hectares belong to 546,084 landowners who live on their own land (resident owners).
599,091 hectares belong to 253,504 owners who do not live on their land (absentee owners).
This shows that most land is held by people who actually live and work on it, which reflects the agricultural and rural nature of Bulgarian society at the time.
Distribution of Property Sizes Among Resident Owners
The table below gives an overview of the size distribution of properties owned by resident landholders.
Each group is classified according to the area of their landholding:
Property Class Number of Proprietors Size of Each Property (decares) Total Area (decares)
1 65,870 Up to 5 157,227
2 37,256 5–10 278,368
3 59,735 10–20 895,796
4 54,841 20–30 1,373,820
5 49,637 30–40 1,735,516
6 44,093 40–50 1,982,241
7 85,177 50–75 5,254,166
8 53,418 75–100 4,618,268
9 53,018 100–150 6,419,925
10 21,108 150–200 3,621,739
11 14,112 200–300 3,390,953
12 4,017 300–400 1,372,808
13 1,593 400–500 708,603
14 1,591 500–1,000 1,051,188
15 428 1,000–2,000 577,745
16 96 2,000–3,000 229,909
17 56 3,000–5,000 214,813
18 38 Over 5,000 401,586
In total, 546,084 resident landowners hold about 34,284,669 decares, which equals 3,428,467 hectares.
Characteristics of Land Ownership in Bulgaria
Even without detailed figures for the non-resident owners, we can clearly see a national pattern. The most common feature of Bulgarian land ownership is the system of small holdings. The majority of land is owned and cultivated by peasants, not by large landlords Customized Istanbul Tours.
Unlike in many European countries at that time, Bulgaria had almost no large estates. The land was divided into many small farms, each owned by local families.
To give an example:
The 34,284,669 decares of land belonging to resident owners are divided into 7,248,648 individual holdings, which gives an average size of about 4 decares per holding.
For non-resident owners, 5,490,908 decares are divided into 733,693 holdings, which also shows a similar pattern of small ownership.
The statistics clearly show that small-scale farming is the foundation of Bulgarian agriculture. The land belongs mostly to peasants who live on and work their farms, creating a close connection between the people and the land. This structure encourages self-sufficiency, hard work, and strong rural communities, though it also limits the development of large-scale commercial farming.
Nevertheless, the Bulgarian model of land ownership reflects a balanced and independent rural economy, where the majority of citizens directly benefit from the land they cultivate.