OVERVIEW

        Romania is situated in south-eastern Europe, between latitudes 43 37'07" and 48 15'06" North and longitudes 20 15'44" and 29 41'24" East, extending approximately 480 km north to south and 640 km east to west.

        The country has an area of 237.500 sq.km and a population of over 23.000.000 of which 89% are Romanians, 7% Hungarians, 2% Gypsies, with small minorities of Germans, Ukrainians, Serbs, Slovaks, Turks, Russians and Bulgarians.

Image from the Carpathians mountains

The Carpathians form a mountainous arc in the centre of the country, bordered by the lower Subcarpathians, descending further into hills and finally the great plains and rivers of the outer rim.         Forests cover over a quarter of the country and the fauna is one of the richest in Europe including wolfes, bears, deers, lynxes and chamois.

The mighty Danube forms the southern boundary of the country terminating in the delta on the Black Sea to the east, a haven for countless native and migratory birds.         Countries sharing borders with Romania are Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.

The Danube River

        Romania's territory includes 6 cultural-historian-geographical zones : OLTENIA, TRANSILVANIA, MARAMURES, MOLDOVA/BUCOVINA, BANAT, DOBROGEA/DANUBE DELTA.

The Black Sea coast

The Romanian territory is a classical geographical example of unity in diversity. The Carpathians, the Danube and the Black Sea are the three elements whose mixture leads to the unity and originality of the Romanian territory called the Carpathian-Danubian-Pontic space.         If the Carpathians have always been the backbone of the Romanian land and the Danube has connected the Romanians to the sea and the rest of the world, then the Black Sea has always been a crossing place of international traffic offering the Romanians the opportunity to participate in this commercial circuit.

Thoroughly European, Romania has given the world cultural patrimony great personalities: the scholar Dimitrie Cantemir, the sculptor Constantin Brancusi, the musician George Enescu, the inventor Henri Coanda, the diplomat Nicolae Titulescu, the historian Nicolae lorga, the dramatist Eugen lonescu, the historian Mircea Eliade, the mathematician Grigore Moisil.         Representing an oasis of Latinity in this part of the world, the Romanians confirm the statement made by the Romanian historian Nicolae lorga: "We have remained Romanians because we could not part from the memory of Rome".

Brincusi "Miss Pogany"

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