Kingdom of Bulgaria

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Tsardom of Bulgaria Царство България Tsarstvo Bǎlgariya
1908–1946
Flag State coat of arms (1927–1946)
Motto: Съединението прави силата Saedinenieto pravi silata ("Unity makes strength")
Anthem: Шуми Марица Shumi Maritsa Maritsa Rushes (1886–1946) Royal anthem: Химн на Негово Величество Царя Himn na Negovo Velichestvo Tsarya ("Anthem of His Majesty the Tsar")
The Kingdom of Bulgaria in 1942
Administrative divisions of the Kingdom of Bulgaria in 1942
Capital and largest city	Sofia
Official languages	Bulgarian
Religion	Bulgarian Orthodox Church (state religion)[1]
Demonym(s)	Bulgarian
Government	Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy (1908–1935; 1943–1946) under military dictatorship (1923–1926) under military junta (1934–1935) under a communist dominant-party military junta (1944–1946) Unitary authoritarian absolute monarchy (1935–1943) (de facto)
Tsar (King)
• 1908–1918	Ferdinand
• 1918–1943	Boris III
• 1943–1946	Simeon II
Chairman of the Council of Ministers
• 1908–1911 (first)	Aleksandar Malinov
• 1944–1946 (last)	Kimon Georgiev
Legislature	National Assembly
Historical era	Balkan Wars • World War I • Interwar period • World War II
• Independence declared	5 October 1908
• Balkan Wars	1912–1913
• Treaty of Bucharest	10 August 1913
• World War I	1915–1918
• Treaty of Neuilly	27 November 1919
• Coup d'état	9 June 1923
• Coup d'état	19 May 1934
• Counter-coup by Boris III	1935
• Treaty of Craiova	7 September 1940
• Coup d'état	9 September 1944
• Monarchy abolished	15 September 1946
Area
1915	122,134 km2 (47,156 sq mi)
Population
• 1915[2]	4,580,000
Currency	lev
ISO 3166 code	BG
Preceded by Succeeded by Principality of Bulgaria People's Republic of Bulgaria Democratic Federal Yugoslavia Kingdom of Greece
Today part of	Bulgaria

The Tsardom of Bulgaria (Bulgarian: Царство България, romanized: Tsarstvo Bǎlgariya), also referred to as the Third Bulgarian Tsardom (Bulgarian: Трето Българско Царство, romanized: Treto Balgarsko Tsarstvo), sometimes translated in English as the "Kingdom of Bulgaria", or simply Bulgaria, was a constitutional monarchy in Southeastern Europe, which was established on 5 October (O.S. 22 September) 1908, when the Bulgarian state was raised from a principality to a tsardom.^[3]

Ferdinand, founder of the royal family, was crowned a Tsar at the Declaration of Independence, mainly because of his military plans and for seeking options for unification of all lands in the Balkans region with an ethnic Bulgarian majority (lands that had been seized from Bulgaria and given to the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Berlin).

The state was almost constantly at war throughout its existence, lending to its nickname as "the Balkan Prussia". For several years Bulgaria mobilized an army of more than 1 million people from its population of about 5 million, and in the 1910s it engaged in three wars – the First and Second Balkan Wars, and the First World War. Following the First World War the Bulgarian army was disbanded and forbidden to exist by the Allied Powers, and all plans for national unification of the Bulgarian lands failed.

Less than two decades later Bulgaria entered the Second World War on the side of the Axis Powers and once again found itself on the losing side, until it switched sides to the Allies in September 1944. In 1946, the monarchy was abolished, its final Tsar was sent into exile, and the Tsardom was replaced by the People's Republic of Bulgaria.