As of September 7, 2021, the Bulgarian ethnic group comprised 5 118 494, or 84.6% of the persons who answered the question about ethnicity. Compared to 2011, the share of this group decreased by 0.2 percentage points. 508 378, or 8.4% of the respondents, identified themselves as belonging to the Turkish ethnic group. Their relative share decreased by 0.4 percentage points compared to 2011. 266 720, or 4.4% of the respondents, identified themselves as the third-largest Roma ethnic group. The relative share of the population from this ethnic group decreased by 0.5 percentage points compared to 2011. 79 006 people, or 1.3%, identified themselves as belonging to other ethnic groups.
15 746 (0.3%) persons indicated that they could not self-determine. 63 767, or 1.0% of respondents, answered ‘I do not want to answer’.
Bulgarian is the mother tongue of 5 037 607 people, or 85.3% of the population, Turkish - for 514 386 people, or 8.7%, and Romani - for 227 974 people, or 3.9% of those who answered the question. Another mother tongue was indicated by 62 906 people, or 1.1%. The persons who indicated that they could not determine their mother tongue were 10 633 (0.2%). 49 602, or 0.8% of respondents, answered, ‘I do not want to answer’.
4 219 270, or 71.5% of those who answered the question, self-identified as Christians. Eastern Orthodox Christians predominate among them - 4 091 780, or 97.0% of those who indicated a Christian religious denomination, followed by persons with a Protestant religious denomination - 69 852 (1.7%), Catholic - 38 709 (0.9%) and 5 002 (0.1%) indicated the Armenian apostolic creed. The answer ‘other Christian’ was chosen by 13 927, or 0.3% of those who answered the question. 638 708 persons, or 10.8%, indicated Muslim religious denomination, 1 736 Jews, and 6 451 persons professed other religions. As of September 7, 2021, 305 102 (5.2%) individuals responded that they did not have a religion, 259 235 (4.4%) had difficulty identifying their religion, and 472 606 (8.0%) indicated that they did not want to answer.
