General Info

Location: Central-Southeastern Europe, midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Ural Mountains.

Area: 238,391 sq.km. (92,037 sq.mi.) – about the size of Oregon, or half the size of France.

Population: 22,810,035 (January 7th, 1992) – second largest country in Central Europe, after Poland.

95.7 inh./sq.km. (248 inh./sq.mi.).
Ethnic Groups: Romanians 89.4%, Hungarians 7.1%, Gypsies 1.8%, Germans 0.5%, other (Ukrainians, Jews, Russians, Serbs, Croats, Turks a.o.) 1.2%.
About 9 million Romanians live outside the country’s boundaries, in Moldova, USA,Canada, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Western Europe, etc.

Boundaries: 3,175 km. (1,973 mi.), out of which Black Sea coastline represents 225 km. (140 mi.). Border Countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Ukraine and Yugoslavia.

Official Language: Romanian – the easternmost Romance Language (most closely related languages: Italian, French, Portuguese). Read our page about the Romanian language or the Romanian language entry on Encyclopedia.com. You can find more information about the Romanian language (and further links) on this page and some excellent Romanian lessons here. Also spoken: the languages of the ethnic minorities (Hungarian, German, etc.). French and English are used widely as well.

Religions: Orthodox 78.4%, Catholic 6.3% – out of which Roman-Catholic 4.0% and Greek-Catholic (Uniate) 2.3%, Protestant 5.9% a.o.

Capital: Bucharest (2,354,510 pop.), situated in the South of the country. Mentioned as a princely residence for the first time in 1459, Bucharest has been the capital of Romania since 1862.

Other Cities: Constanta (established in the 7th Century B.C. as the Greek colony of Tomis, on the Black Sea shore) 350,581; Iasi 344,425; Timisoara 334,278; Cluj-Napoca (attested to as the Roman city of Napoca in the 2nd Century) 328,602; Galati 326,728; Brasov 324,210; Craiova 306,825; Ploiesti 254,136; Braila 235,763; Pitesti 186,000; Sibiu (Hermannstadt, former capital of Transylvania).

Natural Resources: oil, timber, natural gas, coal, iron ore, non-ferrous ores, salt, gold and silver ores.

Climate: Temperate continental. Average temperatures: -4 C (25 F) in January and 23 C (73 F) in July.

Physical Features: mountains 31%, hills and plateaus 33%, plains 36%. Highest Point: Moldoveanu Peak, in Southern Carpathian Mountains, 2,544 m. (8,347 ft.).

National Flag: Three equal vertical bands of red, yellow and blue (hoist side).

National Day: 1st of December.

For more information about Romania, please check out the following links: (many are yet to come)

General information, a country study from the US Library of Congress

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History
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