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ROMANIA – General Information
Republic of Romania:
- situated in South-Eastern Europe;
- capital city: Bucharest;
- local hour: GMT + 2 hours;
- national currency: LEU
- surface: 238,319 square kilometers;
- population: 21,698,181 people;
- natural framework: mountains 31%, plateaus and hills 33%, fields 36%;
- climate: temperate with warm summers and cold winters rich in snow, distinct
- seasons, annual average temperatures between 8 degrees Centigrade in the north and 11 degrees Centigrade in the south.
Form of government: bicameral parliamentary republic.
National flag: blue, yellow and red vertical lines.
National holidays: December 1st
National anthem: `Desteapta-te romane`.
National currency: leu (RON)
Local hour: Bucharest hour GMT + 2 hours; summer hour: GMT + 3 hours (between the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October).
Legal holidays: January 1st and 2nd, Easter time, May 1st, December 1st, December 25th and 26th.
Surface: 238,319 square km.
Administrative organization: 40 counties + Bucharest led by a prefect.
Population: 21,698,181 (51.2% females and 48.8% males).
Nationalities: Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Romanes, Ukrainians, Russians, Slovaks, Turks, Tartars, Serbs, Bulgarians, Croats, Greeks, Jews, Poles, Albanians.
Religion: 86.7% Orthodox. Other religions: Roman-Catholic, Greek-Catholic, Protestant, Adventist, Baptist, Judaic, Unitarian, Muslim.
ROMANIA – Geographical Data
Romania lies in South-Eastern Europe, in a space surrounded by the Carpathians, the Danube river and the Black Sea space, bordering Ukraine in the north and east, Republic of Moldavia in the east, Bulgaria in the south, Macedonia and Serbia in the west and south-west and Hungary in the west and north-west.
The natural borders of the country are the Danube river in the south, the Black Sea in the south-east and the Prut river in the east.
Due to the variety of the natural framework, Romania imposes itself in Europe and all over the world as one of the most beautiful and attractive countries. This unity of the natural framework does not imply only monotony or uniformity of forms and rock structures or of vegetation, but also their harmonious interaction. These features of the territory of Romania may be grouped into three: variety of landscape, proportionality of forms of relief (36% mountains, 34% hills, 30% fields) and concentrical symmetry.
The relief seems to have been created to meet the human needs. The Carpathians which cross the country in the middle are medium high compared to other mountain ranges in Europe, the highest of the tops being half the Alps tops. The Carpathians are divided into three groups. The Oriental Carpathians lie from the north towards the centre, near the city of Brasov and bend towards the west, being 1,400-2,303 metres high (Mount `Pietrosu` in the `Rodna` mountains). The Meridional Carpathians lie in the centre of the country and the group of the `Fagaras` mountains is the highest (Mount `Moldoveanu`-2,544 metres high and Mount `Negoiu`-2,355 metres high). Mount `Piatra Craiului` (2,238 metres high) in the group of `Bucegi` mountains is a nature reserve (one may find the Carthusian pink, the edelweiss, the chamois).
The landscapes in this area are spectacular and they are worth seeing. The last group of the Carpathians is the Occidental Carpathians in the western part of Romania among which the `Apuseni` mountains (Mount `Bihor`-1,844 metres high) are the most spectacular, a real cradle of the Romanian people. The Carpathians is crossed by rivers which flow into the Danube, creating numberless passes, straits and quays which permanently kept in touch Transylvania and the other provinces of Romania.
Inside the Carpathians there is the `Transylvania` plateau lying over 25,000 square km and being 400-600 metres high. Almost 3,000,000 people live in this area in towns and villages. The wine-growing district of Jidvei is famous all over the world. Other plateaus in Romania are `Mehedinti`, `Getic`, `Moldova`, `Dobrogea`.
Outside the Carpathic arch one finds the group of the Sub-Carpathians: `Moldova`, Curburii`, `Dobrogea`. Outside the Occidental Carpathians there are the West Hills and the West Plain which are remarkable due to the natural landscape and to the villages there (where the architecture, customs and traditions hundreds of years old are still preserved).
Other fields: the Romanian Plain and the Danube Delta (which is continually turning into a field). The landscape in the Danube Delta is of a rare beauty and the Delta is the unique nature reserve in the world under UNESCO`s patronage. Here one can find a combination of land and water animals, a crossroads of birds` passage towards the tropics and the Polar circle: wolves, foxes, wild boars, otters, minks, muskrats, pelicans, big cormorants (coming from the region of the Nile river), small cormorants, winter swans, wild ducks (black, red, velvety, big, small or tufted), bald coots and cranes.
The underwater world in the Danube Delta consists itself in an original biotope: wide areas of reed, floating reed islets, white water lilies, sturgeons (sterlets, sevrugas, belugas), barbels, carps, plain surmullets, perches, mackerels, sheat fish, pike perches.
ROMANIA – Historical Data
People have lived in these places since the ancient times, the first proofs of human presence dating from 600,000 years ago. Since then, people in these places have experienced all prehistoric ages, reaching the highest point in the Iron Age in the first millennium BC when the Dacians who lived in the area of the Carpathians and the Danube river separated ethnically from the Thracians who lived in the Balkans.
The Dacians, the Romanians` ancestors, were the founders of a great civilization which could be compared to other ancient civilizations (Egyptian, Maya or Aztec) if we were to take into consideration the richness of their knowledge or their codes of social behaviour. Along the shore of the Black Sea the Greek colonists founded fortresses and cities which greatly contributed to the economic development of the area.
Along the history, Dacia (lived by the Dacians and which lay from the northern part of the Carpathians in actual Poland to the Balkan mountains in the south and was bordered by the `Tisa` river in the east and by the `Nistru`-Dniester river in the east) was formed by small kingdoms led by local kings. These small kingdoms were united in one single state by King Burebista in 70 BC.
As the Roman Empire extended towards the east, Dacia had become a territory that had to be conquered, due to its riches (salt mountains, gold mines, silver, grains and forests) and to its strategic position. This happened in 106 AD when Emperor Traian`s army defeated the Dacian King Decebal`s army after two hard wars between 101 and 102 AD and 105 and 106 AD. In memory of this victory, Emperor Traian erected an impressive column in Rome, the capital of the Empire. This column still exists and is visited by thousands of tourists every year. The Roman domination lasted for 165 years, enough time for a new people to be formed, the Romanian people. Beginning with 1000, the Romanian territory was divided in three provinces (Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia). After 918 years, these three provinces were united in one single state, Romania.
In the first years of the Middle Ages Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarians, the Romanian military leaders giving up political power in the favour of the conquerors. The latter oppressed and abused of a population 80% of Romanian origin, who would permanently be in touch with the Romanians in Wallachia and Moldavia and would fight for their freedom. From here, Negru Voda left in 1200 to lay the foundations of Wallachia in the south and Bogdan I in 1359 to create Moldavia in the east.
During the Middle Ages the main reason why the Romanians` independence and existence were often in danger was the Ottoman Empire which, in its endeavour to conquer all Europe, constantly faced the Romanian Voievodes` opposition: Mircea cel Batran (1386-1418), Iancu of Hunedoara (1441-1446), Vlad Tepes - `Dracula` (1456-1462), Stefan cel Mare (1457-1504) or Mihai Viteazu (1593-1601) - the first to unite the three provinces into one single state in 1600.
But the Middle Ages was not only a period of constant fights against the Ottomans, but also a time when many cultural values came into being: churches, religious books or architectural monuments.
The 19th century was a tumultuous one as a consequence of the 1848 Revolution, of the events before and after it, one of them being the formation of `modern Romania` (in fact Wallachia and Moldavia were united under the rule of the great Romanian leader Alexandru Ioan Cuza, in 1859. Until the end of this century the dynasty of Hohenzollern will have been installed when the Romanian government at that time brought King Charles I to rule the country. Romania conquered its independence in 1877 as a consequence of its taking part into the great war between Russia and Turkey (in the North of present Bulgaria) when the Romanian army triumphed at Grivita, Smardan, Plevna or Nicopole.
At the beginning of the 20th century a new king rules Romania, King Ferdinand I, Charles I`s nephew. Under its rule Transylvania was united to Romania in 1918, at the end of World War I when Romania fought side by side the countries in the Entente. During World War II Romania fought side by side the countries in the Axis, but at the end of it Romania was invaded by the Red Army’s troops that annexed an important part of Romania, now the Republic of Moldavia (in the south and west of Ukraine).
Beginning with 1946 the communist regime came to power, but it was abolished 43 years later, in December 1989, the year of the Romanian Revolution.
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