Bosilegrad in the context of "Pčinja District"

The Transitional Bulgarian dialects are a group of Bulgarian dialects, whose speakers are located west of the yat boundary and are part of the Western Bulgarian dialects. As they have most of the typical characteristics of the North-Western Bulgarian dialects, they are sometimes classified as belonging to this subgroup under the name of Extreme North-Western dialects. On Bulgarian territory, the Transitional dialects occupy a narrow strip of land along the Bulgarian border with Serbia, including the regions of Tran, Breznik, Godech, Chiprovtsi and Belogradchik. They also cross the border to include the dialects or subdialects of the Bulgarian minority in the Western Outlands (the regions of Tsaribrod and Bosilegrad). The Transitional dialects are part of the Torlak dialectal group also spoken in southeastern Serbia and North Macedonia and are part of the gradual transition from Bulgarian to Serbian. The Bulgarian Transitional dialects and the Serbian Prizren-Timok dialects are loosely characterised by mixed, predominantly Serbian phonology and predominantly Bulgarian morphology. The features described here are characteristic only of the Transitional dialects within Bulgaria.

The Western (Bulgarian) Outlands (Bulgarian: Западни (български) покрайнини, romanized: Zapadni (bălgarski) pokrajnini) is a term used in Bulgarian to denote several regions located in ex-Yugoslavia, today southeastern Serbia and southeastern North Macedonia, that were traditionally part of Bulgaria and which were predominantly inhabited by ethnic Bulgarians (Bulgarians in Serbia, Bulgarians in North Macedonia).

The territories in question were ceded by Bulgaria to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1920 as a result of the Treaty of Neuilly, following the World War I. According to the 2022 Serbian census, two municipalities, Bosilegrad and Dimitrovgrad, are populated primarily by ethnic Bulgarians.