Plovdiv Period of National Revival, a number of notable icon-painters (called in Bulgarian "zografi", "зографи") from all regions of the country worked in Plovdiv such as Dimitar Zograf, his son Zafir Zograf, Zahari Zograf, Georgi Danchov, and others. After the Liberation, the Bulgarian painter of Czech origin Ivan Mrkvička came to work in the city. The Painters' Society was established there by artists from southern Bulgaria in 1912 whose members included painters Zlatyu Boyadzhiev, Tsanko Lavrenov and Sirak Skitnik. Today the city has more than 40 art galleries with most of them being privately owned. The Art Gallery of Plovdiv was
Plovdiv is the second or the third-largest cosmopolitan city inhabited by Bulgarians, after Sofia and possibly Varna. According to the 2001 census, out of a population of 338,224 inhabitants, the Bulgarians numbered 302,858 (90%). Stolipinovo in Plovdiv is the largest Roma neighbourhood in the Balkans, having a population of around 20,000 alone; further Roma ghettos are Hadji Hassan Mahala and Sheker Mahala. Therefore, the census number is a deflation of the number of Roma people, and they are most likely the second-largest group after the Bulgarians, most of all because the Muslim Roma in Plovdiv claim to be of Turkish ethnicity