1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Bulgaria
Compare this sourced profile of Sofia, Bulgaria before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Sofia—1,152,556, Europe/Sofia, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: capital city of Bulgaria.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Sofia is GeoNames ID 727011. Its recorded administrative path is Stolichna Obshtina → Sofia-Capital → Bulgaria, and GeoNames classifies the place as a capital of a political entity. Sofia occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2023-09-08; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Sofia ranks 470 by recorded population. Inside the 1 selected Bulgaria entries it ranks 1; inside the 125 entries in its broad region it ranks 31. Its 1,152,556 population value is 1.00 times the 1,152,556 median for the country cohort and 1.74 times the 664,046 regional median. Sofia is rank 1 among the 1 selected Bulgaria entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Sofia's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Sofia's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Pristina at 176.348 km with 550,000 recorded people; Bucharest at 295.696 km with 1,877,155 recorded people; Belgrade at 327.983 km with 1,273,651 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 151.635 km. Compared with Pristina, Sofia's recorded population is 2.10 times as large. Against Sofia, Pristina follows Komuna e Prishtines → Pristina → Kosovo in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the selected Kosovo cohort rather than Bulgaria, uses Europe/Belgrade instead of Europe/Sofia, and carries the same capital of a political entity class. Its recorded population is below Sofia's. Against Sofia, Bucharest follows Municipiul Bucuresti → Bucharest → Romania in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Romania cohort rather than Bulgaria, uses Europe/Bucharest instead of Europe/Sofia, and carries the same capital of a political entity class. Its recorded population is above Sofia's. Against Sofia, Belgrade follows Belgrade → Central Serbia → Serbia in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the selected Serbia cohort rather than Bulgaria, uses Europe/Belgrade instead of Europe/Sofia, and carries the same capital of a political entity class. Its recorded population is above Sofia's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 947 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Sofia's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 727011, the coordinate pair 42.6975 / 23.3242, country rank 1 of 1, and neighbor GeoNames 786714 at 176.348 km bind Sofia to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Sofia's reference point is 42.6975° north and 23.3242° east. The IANA identifier Europe/Sofia is shared by 1 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLC is shared by 129 rows. Sofia's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Sofia's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Sofia's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Sofia, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Sofia's closest other entries in this atlas are Pristina (176.348 km), Bucharest (295.696 km), Belgrade (327.983 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Sofia, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2023-09-08; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.