Number of BG immigrants reaches nearly 3m instead of official 2.1m since 1990

ABOUT BULGARIA

The number of Bulgarian emigrants in the 23 years since the fall of Communism reaches nearly 3 million, the unofficial data of Bulgarian daily 24 Chassa indicates.

Although the official statistics say that the number was 2.1 million in 2011, according to the daily this does not include data about the exodus in the last two years and does not include Bulgarians without a passport.

With an official number of 500,000, Turkey remains the country with the largest Bulgarian expat community. However, according to the newspaper, most of them relocated to Bulgaria's eastern neighbor before the fall of the Communist regime.

According to official data, approximately 300 000 Bulgarians have left for the USA, another 300 000 for Greece and 250 000 for Spain. The non-official data however indicates much higher numbers. With unofficially 150,000 Bulgarians, Chicago ranks as one of the largest ''Bulgarian'' cities, the newspaper notes.

While the different sources put the number of Bulgarians in Canada to between 30,000 – 150,000, between 70 000 and 80 000 have relocated to Brazil and Argentina, the newspaper notes.

Germany is registering the largest growth of Bulgarians living abroad: according to official statistics in 120,000 of them lived on German land, with 20% of them being married to Germans. According to the newspaper, the number of Bulgarians in Germany is increasing so rapidly partially due to the fact, that some of them are relocating there from the crisis-ridden countries of Italy and Spain. In addition, Bulgarians constitute the largest group of foreign students after the Chinese in Germany, 24 Chassa notes.

Officially, there are 19 000 Bulgarians in Cyprus, but unofficially their number reaches 40 000. 

As for the United Kingdom, one of the most popular destinations recently, the official statistic talks about 50,000 resident Bulgarians. However, as according to 24 Chassa, their actual number might be the double of that.

Source: http://www.standartnews.com/
Picture: http://www.novinite.com/

(27.08.2013)