In fruit
Roughly 1,650 to 1,700 years old.
Ancient trees in Bulgaria
Bulgaria's oldest tree is not its most impressive one to look at anymore. We map 10 trees in 7 cities here. The oldest of them is The Granit Oak (Granitski dab) in Granit, at about 1,680 years.
A 1982 core sample counted 1,637 rings in the Granit Oak, dating its germination to around 345 and giving Bulgaria a tree age nobody has to guess at, but a 1969 storm and falling groundwater have since reduced it to a single living branch. Higher up, in Pirin National Park above Bansko, Baikushev's Pine carries a gentler kind of age claim: tradition holds it was already standing when Khan Asparuh founded the First Bulgarian Empire around 681, a repeated figure of about 1,300 years rather than a measured one. Sofia supplies the political history in between, a mulberry linked to national hero Vasil Levski, an oak named for the poet Pencho Slaveykov, a spruce planted for Ivan Vazov. Four cities mapped so far, seven trees, from a dying record-holder to a living tradition.
Every place we map in Bulgaria
1Sofia4 trees · oldest 300-520 years2
Bansko1 tree · oldest 1,300 years3Garmen1 tree · oldest 600-650 years4Granit1 tree · oldest 1,680 years5Novo Selo1 tree · oldest 500 years6
Sliven1 tree · oldest 1,000 years7Veliki Preslav1 tree · oldest 450 years
Bansko1 tree · oldest 1,300 years3Garmen1 tree · oldest 600-650 years4Granit1 tree · oldest 1,680 years5Novo Selo1 tree · oldest 500 years6Sliven1 tree · oldest 1,000 years7Veliki Preslav1 tree · oldest 450 years7 species grow in Bulgaria
Oaks Pedunculate Oak 3
Elms and zelkovas Field Elm 1
Planes Oriental Plane 1
Figs and mulberries White Mulberry 2
Conifers Bosnian Pine 1 · Norway Spruce 1
More broadleaf trees Gray Poplar 1
The 10 oldest trees we map in Bulgaria
Roughly 1,200 to 1,400 years old.
Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Roughly 900 to 1,100 years old.
Photo: Georgi Angelov (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Roughly 550 to 700 years old.
Roughly 400 to 500 years old.
In fruit
Roughly 300 to 520 years old.
Roughly 300 to 500 years old.
Roughly 220 to 650 years old.
Roughly 138 to 143 years old.
Roughly 130 to 138 years old.
Trees from Bulgaria also appear in The Autumn Harvest · The Trees the World Has Written About · The Oldest Tree in Every City We Map. See every city on the map, or open the map to find what is near you.