ROMANIA IN BRIEF

 The capital of the country is the city of Bucharest, the largest economic, social and tourist center of Romania and the most important crossroads for national and international transportation.      
Since December 1989, Romania has been a Parliamentary Republic with a bicameral political system formed of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies.            
Romania is a country in which the prevailing religion is Orthodox – 86.81 %. The rest of the population consists of. 5.10 % Roman-Catholics, 3.52 % Protestants and 4.57 % other religions.       

The Carpatian-Danube-Pontic geographical background is determined by the structural unity and diversity of the forms of relief.     

The Carpathian Mountains consist of three ranges (Eastern, Western and Southern) and, owing to their central position, are a proper “spine” of the relief. The Carpatians encircle the large inner depression of Transylvania almost concentrically while the unfolding Sub-Carpathian hills, plateaus and fields are disposed in equal proportions (the mountains 1/3, the fields 1/3, the hills and the plateaus 1/3). The main units of relief are the Carpathians (highest altitude 2,544 meters in the Fagaras Mountains), the Transylvanian Plateau, the Sub-Carpathians, the Western Hills, the Moldavian Plateau to the northeast and east, the Getae Plateau to the south, the Romanian Plain to the south and east; the Western Plain, the Dobrogea Plateau (the oldest region of the Romanian territory) to the southeast and the Danube Delta (the youngest one).

The rivers – owing to the distribution of the units of relief, the river network is radially concentric, some of them head north as affluents of the Tisa River (Mures, Somes and Crisul), some others head south and southeast to flow into the Danube River (Olt, Jiu and Ialomita) while still others flow to the east as tributaries of the Siret River (Moldova and Bistrita).

There are 3,500 lakes of various origins: glacial in the high mountains, volcanic, natural or behind a dam, on plateaus, rivers and maritime. The most extensive is Lake Razim on the Black Sea coast.

The climate is temperate – continental with oceanic, Baltic or Black Sea influences and four seasons. Cold winters and heavy snow, especially in the mountains, and hot summers.

 The Romanian history cannot be separated from the history of the European people as a whole, though it may be considered as a very eventful one. Like other Romanic peoples, the Romanians’ origins go back to the beginning of the 1 st millenium A.D.. They have continued to live in the same geographic area up to the present times, a location inhabited by their ancestors, the Thracians, long before the 2 nd millenium B.C.. During the reign of Decebalus (87 – 106 A.D.), at the end of two wars, Roman legions led by Trajan invaded Dacia, which was included between the borders of the Empire for almost two centuries. Nowadays, Romanians are the sole descendents of the eastern Romanic world and their language, along with Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French, is a main descendant of latin. Romanians are the only people that have preserved in their name (Romanian – derived from the Latin “romanus”) until the present time the memory of Rome’s Seal, a memory perpetuated in the name adopted by the national state, Romania.

Romania is an island of Latinity that has survived in a Slavic Sea, an area devastated for over a millennium by waves of migratory peoples and invaders.

Christians of the Orthodox rite, the Romanians have lived in the three neighboring independent provinces of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania from the Middle Ages to the modern times. In spite of their location at the crossroads of the big expansionist empires, Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Empire, Romanians have managed to maintain their sovereignty, their faith and their civilization while the neighboring kingdoms such as Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Poland were erased from Europe’s map. In recent history, in spite of the hostility and declared opposition of the same big powers, the union of Moldavia and Wallachia was implemented in 1859 and the process was completed in 1918 with the union of Transylvania with Romania at the end of the First World War. The dream of all Romanians to be reunited meant the sacrifice of over 800,000 lives.

The result of two decades of economic and cultural progress was stopped in 1940 on the occasion of World War II. In 1945, after 4 years of war with another 700,000 deaths, the democratic tradition of Romania was cut off by the arrival of Soviet troops and the imposition of the communist regime that reached its climax with Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship. This devastating age came to an end for the Romanian people when the Revolution of December 1989 opened a new page of contemporary history for Romania.

 Tourist potential is rich and diversified. Variety and climatic conditions offer the opportunity to practice various types of tourism: balneary tourism, holidays at the seashore and in the mountains and winter sports.

The mineral and thermal waters, the mofettes used for medical treatments, the forests and the hunting and fishing grounds are valuable natural elements, turned to good account from the tourist point of view.

The most visited tourist areas are the Carpathians, Bucovina and Maramures in the northern part of the country, the Black Sea coast and the Danube Delta. The large cities of the country such as Bucharest, the capital, in particular, as well as the medieval towns such as Brasov, Sibiu and Sighisoara are of a special interest, as well. Churches and monasteries, castles and palaces and the many resorts and spas are uniformly distributed across the country, from the mountain areas to the plains and the seashore.