15444 people did so. Tatar Muslims live in northeastern Bulgaria and the small Arab diaspora is based mainly in the capital, Sofia. Finally, there are those Bulgarian Muslims who have chosen not to declare their ethnicity in the 2001 Census . The percentage of undeclared in the Smolyan Province (9,696 or 6.9%), the Kardzhali Province (4,565 or 2.8%) and the Blagoevgrad Province (4,242 or 1.2%) is well above the national average of 0.8%. These are most likely to be Muslim Bulgarians who would have opted for another ethnicity, for example "Pomak" or "Muslim", if these were allowed as answers at the census or are unclear themselves about their own ethnic identity. Due to the multitude of different ethnic and religious identities of the Muslim Bulgarians, it is extremely difficult to calculate the exact number of the members of the community in Bulgaria. An inquiry conducted by the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior in 1989 estimated their number at 269,000. A summation of the different groups with different ethnic identities (approximately 130,000 Muslim Bulgarians, approximately 55,000-65,000 Bulgarians, up to 50,000 Muslim Turks, 15,000 to 20,000 undeclared) yields approximately the same number. Despite the multitude of different ethnic the predominant ethnic identity would be Bulgarian (approximately 200,000 or three-quarters of the total population) and the predominant religious identity would be Muslim. Muslim Bulgarians in the Rhodopes speak a variety of archaic Bulgarian dialects. Under the influence of mass media and school education, the dialects have been almost completely unified with standard Bulgarian among Muslim Bulgarians living in Bulgaria. See also Islam in Bulgaria Pomaks Torbesh Greek Muslims Cheveneburi Lazs Hamshenis Notes References Society of Bulgaria Muslim communities in Europe Pomaks bg:Помаци de:Pomaken pt:Búlgaros muçulmanos sv:Muslimska bulgarer tr:Pomaklar