What the data says about Bulgaria

Bulgaria sits in the high-income bracket but outside the OECD's harmonized reporting network, so its statistics come straight from the World Bank, WHO, and ILO source series rather than a jointly reconciled OECD dataset - still official, but with less cross-checking between agencies than an OECD member gets. Because output and income figures are converted at market exchange rates into current dollars, they can swing with currency movements independent of any real change in living standards, and for a small economy like this one that swing shows up more visibly in the headline numbers than it would for a larger country. The fuller picture comes from comparing Bulgaria against income-tier peers of a similar size.

Bulgaria sits in Europe & Central Asia with a population of 6.4 million, placing it 110th out of 217 countries by headcount. Its capital, Sofia, anchors a High income economy with total GDP of $113.3 billion - ranked 68th globally, and GDP per capita of $17,597. This combination of demographic scale and economic output shapes everything from household purchasing power and domestic market depth to the country's weight in regional trade flows and international development programmes.

Life expectancy at birth in Bulgaria is 75.8 years, ranking 101st worldwide and offering a summary read on healthcare access, nutrition, sanitation, and long-run living standards. The World Bank's World Development Indicators, combined with the WHO Global Health Observatory and ILO ILOSTAT wage statistics, expose 41 data points across 7 thematic areas, from fertility and urbanisation to CO₂ emissions, school enrolment, and labour-force participation. Reading these indicators together, rather than in isolation, is what turns headline numbers into a grounded portrait of how people actually live.

Use the indicator tables below to track trajectories over time, jump to Bulgaria's placement on specific rankings such as GDP, population density, or life expectancy, and open the side-by-side Compare view to benchmark against peers inside Europe & Central Asia or across income groups. Because all figures come from official, CC BY 4.0-licensed datasets with clear vintages, you can cite them directly in research or journalism. Where a field reads "N/A", the upstream agency has not yet released that value for Bulgaria - we never fabricate estimates or carry forward stale values, so missing points stay visible rather than quietly filled in.