ABSTRACT
The integration drive and its orientation within the different periods of Bulgarian development have had a definitive impact on regional dynamics and spatial patterns.
The implications of the former integration of the country, namely the extreme dependence of the national economy on CMEA, are still tangible. These are related, above all, to the development of heavy and strongly material intensive industries, despite a background of limited national energy and ore resources, and to technological backwardness because of the system’s relative isolation from global competition. The result has been an accelerated process of territorial concentration in the eastern direction and the emergence of a national periphery along the western and southern borders of the country.
