dwellings have electricity.

Bulgaria has been primarily agricultural and has been overrun, pillaged,
and occupied by so many conquerors that its cities have suffered, and
their inhabitants have had less opportunity than have those in most
European countries to develop a culture. There are relatively few cities
with noteworthy associations with the country's past. There are,
however, a few notable exceptions, and some of their histories antedate
the introduction of the Bulgar people into the region. There are others
that, if not altogether new, have had rapid and well-planned growth
during the country's recent history. Modern city growth has been
accompanied by the construction of large numbers of apartment houses,
many of them built as rapidly as possible to recover space destroyed
during World War II and to accommodate the heavy influx of people to
urban areas.

Sofia was founded by the Thracians and has had a continuous history of
some importance for 2,000 years. No trace of its original founders
remains in the city, although it retained its Thracian name, Serdica,
while it was a part of the Roman Empire. It is situated in a sheltered
basin at the base of the Vitosha range, a location that has been both
strategically and esthetically desirable. Long-established
communications routes cross at the city. The most traveled and most
famous is that from Belgrade to Istanbul. It is Sofia's main street for
that portion of its route. At the city it crosses the north-south route
from the Aegean Sea to the Danube River that uses the Struma and Iskur
river valleys. Some of the other routes that radiate from the city,
particularly those to the Black Sea coastal cities, are of more local
importance than the international routes. Sofia's pleasant climate, plus
its strategic location, made the city a contender in the selection of a
capital for Rome in Emperor Constantine's reign. Its hot springs were an
added attraction to the Romans, and their baths remain.

Sofia was a thriving city under the Romans. Attila the Hun destroyed it
in the fifth century A.D., but it was rebuilt in the sixth and seventh
centuries, when its population grew to about 40,000. It declined again
under the Ottomans, and in 1878, when it was liberated, it had only some
15,000-20,000 inhabitants. It has grown rapidly since becoming the
capital of the modern state.

Sofia is the city's fourth name. Saint Sophia's sixth-century church
occupies the highest land