Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja (
Южна Ð"обруджа (Yuzhna Dobrudzha) in
Bulgarian,
Dobrogea de sud or
Cadrilater in
Romanian) is an area of north-eastern
Bulgaria comprising the administrative districts named for its two principal cities of
Dobrich and
Silistra. It has an area of 7565 km² and a population of 358,000.
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Map of Romania and Bulgaria with Cadrilater or Southern Dobrudja highlighted in yellow. |
At the beginning of the modern era, Southern Dobruja had a mixed population of
Bulgarians and
Turks with several smaller minorities, including
Gagauz,
Crimean Tatars and
Romanians. In 1910, of the 282,007 inhabitants of Southern Dobruja, 134,355 (47.6%) were Bulgarians, 106,568 (37.8%) Turks, 12,192 (4.3%) Gypsies, 11,718 (4.1%) Tatars and 6,484 (2.4%) Romanians.
Southern Dobruja was part of the autonomous Bulgarian principality from the time of the liberation of
Bulgaria from
Ottoman rule in
1878 until the
Balkan Wars. After the defeat of Bulgaria in the
Second Balkan War, the region was incorporated into
Romania under the
1913 Treaty of Bucharest. Romania ruled Southern Dobruja until
1940 settling tens of thousands of
Aromanians from
Macedonia and Northern
Greece, as well as Romanians from
Wallachia in the region.
On 7 September
1940 Southern Dobruja was restored to Bulgaria under the
Treaty of Craiova. The treaty was followed by an obligatory
population exchange: about 110,000 Romanians (most settled there after 1913) were forced to leave Southern Dobruja, whereas 77,000 Bulgarians had to leave northern Dobruja. A few hundred Romanians and Aromanians still live here to this day.
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Northern Dobruja
