Romania

I

Introduction

Romania, country in southeastern Europe, occupying the northeastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. Romania is a land of historic villages and castles, fertile plains, and majestic mountains. For much of its history, foreign powers, including the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary, have controlled Romania or parts of it. Bucharest is Romania’s capital and largest city.

Roughly oval in shape, Romania is nearly as large as the state of Oregon. Romania shares borders with Bulgaria to the south, Serbia to the southwest, Hungary to the northwest, Ukraine to the north, and Moldova to the northeast. In the southeast, sandy beaches and seaside resorts line Romania’s short coastline along the Black Sea. The Danube River, which connects central Europe with the Black and Mediterranean seas, forms much of Romania’s southern and southwestern borders with Bulgaria and Serbia.

Romania’s landscape is dominated by the Carpathian Mountains, a great mountain system that cuts through the country in a circular arc and covers about one-third of Romania’s total area. The thickly forested mountains boast large populations of bears, wolves, lynx, deer, and wild boar. The broad, swampy Danube delta, the largest in Europe, is an important wildlife refuge and paradise for birdwatchers.

Agriculture has always been an important part of Romanian life and, despite extensive industrialization since World War II, farming remains a cornerstone of Romania’s economy. Today, nearly half of all Romanians still live in rural areas, where people graze livestock, especially sheep, and grow cereal grains, potatoes, fruits, and many other crops.

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Romanian culture reflects the blending of various cultural traditions over many centuries. When the Roman Empire conquered Romania in 106 AD to form the province of Dacia, the native Thracian peoples adopted the Latin language and many other basic features of Roman life. Romanians are the only people of Eastern Europe who trace their language and ancestry back to the ancient Romans. Early Roman influence was later challenged by Slav, Greek, Turkish, and Hungarian influences. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine influence was profound (Byzantine Empire), and it remains visible today in the country’s picturesque castles and churches and in the predominance of the Orthodox Church. The famous painted monasteries of Bukovina, with their brilliant exterior frescoes, are among Europe’s greatest medieval monuments.

The modern country of Romania was created in 1859. It became fully independent in 1878. Romania was a kingdom from 1881 to 1947. In 1948 communists took control of Romania and modeled the government and economy after those of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, or Soviet Union). In the 1960s Romania’s communist leaders began to distance themselves from the Soviet Union and develop independent domestic and foreign policies. Romania’s economy grew rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s. However, by the 1980s economic growth had given way to stagnation, food shortages and other economic hardships, and severe political repression.

In 1989 Romanians revolted against the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu, the country’s president and leader of the Romanian Communist Party. Ceauşescu and his wife were executed in December 1989, and a noncommunist government was installed. The first free multiparty elections took place in Romania in 1990. Since that time, Romania’s government has taken steps toward economic and democratic reforms, although the pace of reform has been slow and uneven. In March 2004 Romania formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Romania opened membership negotiations with the European Union (EU) in 1999 and formally became a member at the beginning of 2007.

II

Land and Resources

Romania has a total land area of 237,500 sq km (91,700 sq mi). At its greatest distance, Romania measures 720 km (450 mi) from east to west and 515 km (320 mi) from north to south.

A

Natural Regions

Transylvania, an extensive elevated plateau region that reaches a maximum height of about 600 m (about 2,000 ft), occupies most of central and northwestern Romania. Transylvania is divided by wide valleys and rivers and is fringed by the Carpathian Mountains. This mountain chain rises in a wide arc that reaches from northeastern Romania to the southwest, and it has several divisions. The Eastern Carpathians extend from the northern border to the center of the country and contain the forested region of Bukovina; the Southern Carpathians, also known as the Transylvanian Alps, stretch westward from the Eastern Carpathian range; and the Western Carpathians traverse the western portion of Romania. The Southern Carpathians contain the country’s highest peak, Moldoveanu, which rises to an elevation of 2,543 m (8,343 ft).

Powerful earthquakes centered in the Carpathians are not uncommon. In 1977 an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 on the Richter scale inflicted serious damage on Bucharest and claimed more than 1,500 lives.

The areas stretching outward from Romania’s mountainous interior contain hills and tablelands full of orchards and vineyards, and flat lowlands where cereal and vegetable farming takes place. The Tisza Plain dominates western Romania and borders both Hungary and Serbia; the section of the plain that borders Serbia is generally known as the region of Banat, while the section that borders Hungary is commonly referred to as Crişana-Maramureş. To the east of central Romania, stretching from the Carpathians to the Prut River along the Moldovan border, lies the region of Moldavia. Southern Romania contains the region of Walachia, which stretches from the southernmost mountains to the Danube and contains the city of Bucharest. The small region of Dobruja, located in the extreme southeast between the Danube River and the Black Sea, is home to fertile croplands and coastal tourist resorts.

B

Rivers and Lakes

The most important river of Romania is the Danube. Its lower course forms a delta that covers much of northeastern Dobruja. All of Romania’s major rivers are part of the Danube system. These include the Mureş, the Someş, the Olt, the Prut, and the Siret. Romania has many small, freshwater mountain lakes, but the largest lakes are saline lagoons on the coast of the Black Sea; the largest of these is Lake Razelm.