Belitsa Municipality
|
Belitsa Municipality Община Белица |
|
|---|---|
| Municipality (Obshtina) | |
.png) Location in Blagoevgrad province Location on map of Bulgaria
 |
|
| Coordinates: 41°57′N 23°34′E / 41.950°N 23.567°ECoordinates: 41°57′N 23°34′E / 41.950°N 23.567°E | |
| Country | Bulgaria |
| Province (Oblast) | Blagoevgrad |
| Seat | Belitsa |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Ibrahim Palev (DPS) |
| Area | |
| • Total | 293.54 km2 (113.34 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 952 m (3,123 ft) |
| Population (2011) | |
| • Total | 9,927 |
| • Density | 34/km2 (88/sq mi) |
| Demonym(s) | Belichanin / pl. Belichani |
| Time zone | EET (UTC+2) |
| • Summer (DST) | EEST (UTC+3) |
| Website | www |
Belitsa Municipality (Bulgarian: Община Белица, Obshtina Belitsa) is located in the southwestern part of Bulgaria in the northeastern part of the Blagoevgrad Province. The administrative center is the town of Belitsa and there are also 11 villages and the ski resort Semkovo.
Belitsa municipality is situated in a mountainous area, including parts of the Rila and Rhodope Mountains and the valley of the upper flow of the Mesta river. Belitsa is situated on the southern foothills of Rila, while Semkovo is much higher and is actually the highest part of the municipality. The villages Dagonovo, Kraishte and Gorno Kraishte are in the valley of Mesta river and the rest of the villages are in the Rhodope Mountains.
The entire area of the municipality is 293,536 decares, of which 221,862 are wooded areas and 62,205 are farmlands. The terrain is mostly mountainous and hilly. The territory includes parts of Rila, the Rhodopes, and the dale of the Mesta river. East of the valley, on the river Belichka, there are parts of the eastern (Musalenski) section of the Rila Mountains.
The region has been populated 8000 years BC. Remains from that period have been found at the archaeological site Raven near Belitsa. There are Thracian remains near Babyak and Belitsa, some of them with big importance – a wooden sarcophagus exposed in the historical museum in Belitsa and a marble plate with the images of Zeus and Hera, now in the National Historical Museum in Sofia. The name Belitsa has been noted for first time in Ottoman documents from 1576 year. In 1716 the first Christian church has been built. According to the Treaty of Berlin (1878) the region was returned to the Ottoman Empire. After the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903 the town of Belitsa was destroyed and burnt. Since 1920 after the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1919 Belitsa and the surrounding villages have remained in Bulgaria.
In the years of the Second World War the Partisan movement engaged people from Belitsa and the near villages, who formed detachment that merged with the bigger detachment Nikola Parapunov. During the Communist government there has been several acts of renaming the people with non-Bulgarian (Islamic) names, that caused discontent in the pomak people.
...
Wikipedia