Plovdiv a horse racing club and a horse base near the city. Plovdiv has several volleyball and basketball teams. Three of the city's seven hills are protected natural territories since 1995. Two of the first parks in Bulgaria are located in the city center "Tsar Simeon garden – city garden", where the very first work of the Italian sculptor Arnoldo Zocchi could be seen, and "Dondukov garden – old city garden". Some of the larger parks include the "Botanical garden", "Beli Brezi", "Ribnitsa", and "Lauta". Plovdiv is twinned with the following cities: The asteroid (minor planet) is named after the city.
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