Montana (Bulgarien)

Montana is a city in northwestern Bulgaria, located 50km south of the Danube river, 40km northwest of Vratsa and 30km east of the Serbian border. It is the administrative centre of Montana Province.NamesWhen the town was first settled by Slavs it was known as Kutlovitsa; later in Ottoman Turkish as Kutlofça. The town was renamed Ferdinand in 1890, receiving the benevolence of Bulgarian Knyaz Ferdinand and a city status. On 1 March 1945, by a decree of the government, the communist authorities changed the town's name to Mihaylovgrad after the red party activist Hristo Mihaylov (died 1944), a leader of the 1923 September Uprising in the region. In 1993, after a presidential decree, the town received the name Montana, inspired by the name of the nearby Roman settlement, from Latin mons, "mountain".GeographyMontana is situated on the river Ogosta, north of Stara Planina, surrounded on the south and east by uplands.The climate is temperate continental, with a cold winter and hot summer. The average temperature is 1°C in January and 25°C in July. In the last 15–20 years, temperatures reaching up to 35to in the summer are not uncommon.PopulationAs of February 2011, the city has a population of 43,781 inhabitants. The number of the residents of the city reached its peak in the period 1988-1991 when exceeded 55,000 with a highest rate in 1991 numbering 57,142.