Arda is a village in the municipality of Smolyan

Smolyan

Smolyan is a town and ski resort in the very south of Bulgaria not far from the border with Greece. It is the administrative and industrial centre of the homonymous Smolyan Province...

, located in the Smolyan Province

Smolyan Province

-Religion:The Smolyan province along with the Kardzhali Province is a province where the predominant religion is not Orthodox Christianity but Islam. However, unlike Kardzhali where the majority of the population is Turkish, the Muslim population of the Smolyan province is made up almost entirely...

 of southern Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

. It is located 173.424 km from Sofia

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

 and the village covers an area of 17.928 km². As of 2007, the village had a population of 314 people.

The village is located 30 km south of Smolyan. The village is recorded in records of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 indicating 13 soldiers in the army were from the village. A census of 1912-1913 indicated a population of 200.

Some of the inhabitants of the village are Pomaks

Pomaks

Pomaks is a term used for a Slavic Muslim population native to some parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The Pomaks speak Bulgarian as their native language, also referred to in Greece and Turkey as Pomak language, and some are fluent in Turkish,...

 and follow Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

 as their main religion, others are Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians

Bulgarians

The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...

.

Annually the Ilinden festival takes place every summer. Near the village of Arda, in the neighbourhoods of Gudevitsa and Lagat (birth place of folk singer Valya Balkanska

Valya Balkanska

Valya Mladenova Balkanska is a Bulgarian folk music singer from the Rhodope Mountains known locally for her wide repertoire of Balkan folksong, but in the West mainly for singing the song "Izlel e Delyu Haydutin", part of the Voyager Golden Record selection of music included in the two Voyager...

) there are springs from one of the largest Bulgarian rivers, the Arda, from which the village takes its name. In this neighbourhood is also a church, built in 1882.

Notable people

• Valya Balkanska
  Valya Balkanska
  Valya Mladenova Balkanska is a Bulgarian folk music singer from the Rhodope Mountains known locally for her wide repertoire of Balkan folksong, but in the West mainly for singing the song "Izlel e Delyu Haydutin", part of the Voyager Golden Record selection of music included in the two Voyager...
  
   (1942–), Bulgarian folk singer
• Vasil Angelov
  Vasil Angelov
  Vasil Tomov Angelov was a Bulgarian military officer and a revolutionary, a worker of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization .-Biography:...
  
   (1882–1953), Bulgarian revolutionary and military person
• Dicho Uzunov (1921–), Bulgarian military person
• Asen Vasilev (1909–1987), carver, folk artist