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Romania is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe. It lies on the lower course of the Danube, north of the Balkan Peninsula, and on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It is the twelfth-largest country in Europe by area, covering 238,397 km2 (92,046 mi2), and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union, with 19 million inhabitants. The capital, largest city and economic centre is Bucharest. Other major cities include Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Constanța, Timișoara, Brașov and Craiova.
Romania was settled during the Lower Paleolithic. In antiquity its territory was inhabited by the Dacians. Part of it became the Roman province of Dacia after Trajan's Dacian Wars, beginning the process of Romanisation. The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 through the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia under Alexandru Ioan Cuza, and adopted the name Romania in 1866. Carol I became prince in 1866. Romania proclaimed its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877, which was recognised by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, and became the Kingdom of Romania in 1881 under Carol I. As a result of its participation in the Second Balkan War, Romania acquired Southern Dobruja from Bulgaria in 1913, concluded by the Treaty of Bucharest.
During World War I, Romania joined the Allies, and in 1918 Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania united with the Kingdom. These unions were internationally recognised by the Treaty of Saint-Germain, the Treaty of Trianon and the Treaty of Paris. Greater Romania thus reached its largest territorial extent. In 1940, Romania lost Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, Northern Transylvania to Hungary under the Second Vienna Award, and Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria under the Treaty of Craiova. Romania joined the Axis powers and took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union, but following the Act of 23 August 1944 it switched sides to join the Allies. Romania regained Northern Transylvania in 1945, which the Paris Peace Treaties confirmed in 1947. Under Soviet occupation, King Michael I was forced to abdicate in December 1947, and Romania became a communist state, the Romanian People's Republic, and later a Warsaw Pact member. It was renamed the Socialist Republic of Romania in 1965. After the Romanian revolution of 1989 and the fall of communism, Romania began a transition to liberal democracy and a market economy.
Romania is a developed country with a high-income economy and one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, driven by a large industrial base, with significant automotive manufacturing, pharmaceutical, mining, energy and weapons industries, as well as a major information technology industry, with major cities serving as regional technology centres. It is also known for its internet infrastructure, which ranks among the fastest in the world. Romania is regarded as a middle power in international relations and is a member of the European Union, NATO, and the BSEC, among other international organisations.
Romania derives from the local name for Romanian (Romanian: român), which in turn derives from Latin romanus, meaning "Roman" or "of Rome". This ethnonym for Romanians is first attested in the sixteenth century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia. The oldest known surviving document written in Romanian that can be precisely dated, a 1521 letter known as the "Letter of Neacșu from Câmpulung", is notable for including the first documented occurrence of Romanian in a country name: Wallachia is mentioned as Țara Rumânească.
Human remains found in Peștera cu Oase ("Cave with Bones"), radiocarbon date from circa 40,000 years ago, and represent the oldest known Homo sapiens in Europe. Neolithic agriculture spread after the arrival of a mixed group of people from Thessaly in the 6th millennium BC. Excavations at the Poiana Slatinei site near a salt spring next to Lunca, Neamț yielded the earliest evidence for salt exploitation in Europe; here salt production began between the 5th and 4th millennium BC. The first permanent settlements developed into "proto-cities", which were larger than 320 hectares (800 acres). The Cucuteni–Trypillia culture—the best known archaeological culture of Old Europe—flourished in Muntenia, southeastern Transylvania and northeastern Moldavia in the 3rd millennium BC. The first fortified settlements appeared around 1800 BC, showing the militant character of Bronze Age societies.
Greek colonies established on the Black Sea coast in the 7th century BC became important centres of commerce with the local tribes. Among the native peoples, Herodotus listed the Getae of the Lower Danube region, the Agathyrsi of Transylvania and the Syginnae of the plains along the river Tisza at the beginning of the 5th century BC. Centuries later, Strabo associated the Getae with the Dacians who dominated the lands along the southern Carpathian Mountains in the 1st century BC. Burebista was the first Dacian ruler to unite the local tribes. He also conquered the Greek colonies in Dobruja and the neighbouring peoples as far as the Middle Danube and the Balkan Mountains between around 55 and 44 BC. After Burebista was murdered in 44 BC, his kingdom collapsed.
The Romans reached Dacia during Burebista's reign and conquered Dobruja in 46 AD. Dacia was again united under Decebalus around 85 AD. He resisted the Romans for decades, but the Roman army defeated his troops in 106 AD. Emperor Trajan transformed Banat, Oltenia and the greater part of Transylvania into a new province called Roman Dacia, but Dacian, Germanic and Sarmatian tribes continued to dominate the lands along the Roman frontiers. The Romans pursued an organised colonisation policy, and the provincials enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity in the 2nd century. Scholars accepting the Daco-Roman continuity theory—one of the main theories about the origin of the Romanians—say that the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in Roman Dacia was the first phase of the Romanians' ethnogenesis. The Carpians, Goths and other neighbouring tribes made regular raids against Dacia from the 210s. The Romans could not resist, and Emperor Aurelian ordered the evacuation of the province Dacia Trajana in the 270s. Scholars supporting the continuity theory are convinced that most Latin-speaking commoners stayed behind when the army and civil administration was withdrawn. The Romans did not abandon their fortresses along the northern banks of the Lower Danube for decades, and Dobruja (known as Scythia Minor) remained an integral part of the Roman Empire until the early 7th century.
The Goths were expanding towards the Lower Danube from the 230s, forcing the native peoples to flee to the Roman Empire or to accept their suzerainty. The Goths' rule ended abruptly when the Huns invaded their territory in 376, causing new waves of migrations. The Huns forced the remnants of the local population into submission, but their empire collapsed in 454. The Gepids took possession of the former Dacia province. Place names that are of Slavic origin abound in Romania, indicating that a significant Slavic-speaking population lived in the territory. The first Slavic groups settled in Moldavia and Wallachia in the 6th century, in Transylvania around 600. The nomadic Avars defeated the Gepids and established a powerful empire around 570. The Bulgars, who also came from the European Pontic steppe, occupied the Lower Danube region in 680.
After the Avar Khaganate collapsed in the 790s, the First Bulgarian Empire became the dominant power of the region, occupying lands as far as the river Tisa. The First Bulgarian Empire had a mixed population consisting of the Bulgar conquerors, Slavs and Vlachs (or Romanians) but the Slavicisation of the Bulgar elite had already begun in the 9th century. Following the conquest of southern Transylvania around 830, people from the Bulgar Empire mined salt at the local salt mines. The Council of Preslav declared Old Church Slavonic the language of liturgy in the country in 893. The Vlachs also adopted Old Church Slavonic as their liturgical language.
The Magyars (or Hungarians) took control of the steppes north of the Lower Danube in the 830s, but the Bulgarians and the Pechenegs forced them to abandon this region for the lowlands along the Middle Danube around 894. Centuries later, the Gesta Hungarorum wrote of the invading Magyars' wars against three dukes—Glad, Menumorut and the Vlach Gelou—for Banat, Crișana and Transylvania. The Gesta also listed many peoples—Slavs, Bulgarians, Vlachs, Khazars, and Székelys—inhabiting the same regions. The reliability of the Gesta is debated. Some scholars regard it as a basically accurate account, others describe it as a literary work filled with invented details. The Pechenegs seized the lowlands abandoned by the Hungarians to the east of the Carpathians.
Byzantine missionaries proselytised in the lands east of the Tisa from the 940s and Byzantine troops occupied Dobruja in the 970s. The first king of Hungary, Stephen I, who supported Western European missionaries, defeated the local chieftains and established Roman Catholic bishoprics (office of a bishop) in Transylvania and Banat in the early 11th century. Significant Pecheneg groups fled to the Byzantine Empire in the 1040s; the Oghuz Turks followed them, and the nomadic Cumans became the dominant power of the steppes in the 1060s. Cooperation between the Cumans and the Vlachs against the Byzantine Empire is well documented from the end of the 11th century. Scholars who reject the Daco-Roman continuity theory say that the first Vlach groups left their Balkan homeland for the mountain pastures of the eastern and southern Carpathians in the 11th century, establishing the Romanians' presence in the lands to the north of the Lower Danube.
Exposed to nomadic incursions, Transylvania developed into an important border province of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Székelys—a community of free warriors—settled in central Transylvania around 1100 and moved to the easternmost regions around 1200. Colonists from the Holy Roman Empire—the Transylvanian Saxons' ancestors—came to the province in the 1150s. A high-ranking royal official, styled voivode, ruled the Transylvanian counties from the 1170s, but the Székely and Saxon seats (or districts) were not subject to the voivodes' authority. Royal charters wrote of the "Vlachs' land" in southern Transylvania in the early 13th century, indicating the existence of autonomous Romanian communities. Papal correspondence mentions the activities of Orthodox prelates among the Romanians in Muntenia in the 1230s. Also in the 13th century, the Republic of Genoa started establishing colonies on the Black Sea, including Calafat, and Constanța.
The Mongols destroyed large territories during their invasion of Eastern and Central Europe in 1241 and 1242. The Mongols' Golden Horde emerged as the dominant power of Eastern Europe, but Béla IV of Hungary's land grant to the Knights Hospitallers in Oltenia and Muntenia shows that the local Vlach rulers were subject to the king's authority in 1247. Basarab I of Wallachia united the Romanian polities between the southern Carpathians and the Lower Danube in the 1310s. He defeated the Hungarian royal army in the Battle of Posada and secured the independence of Wallachia in 1330. The second Romanian principality, Moldavia, achieved full autonomy during the reign of Bogdan I around 1360. A local dynasty ruled the Despotate of Dobruja in the second half of the 14th century, but the Ottoman Empire took possession of the territory after 1388.
Princes Mircea I and Vlad III of Wallachia, and Stephen III of Moldavia defended their countries' independence against the Ottomans. Most Wallachian and Moldavian princes paid a regular tribute to the Ottoman sultans from 1417 and 1456, respectively. John Hunyadi, organised the defence of the Kingdom of Hungary and anti-Ottoman campaigns from 1440 until his death in 1456. Increasing taxes outraged the Transylvanian peasants, and they rose up in an open rebellion in 1437, but the Hungarian nobles and the heads of the Saxon and Székely communities jointly suppressed their revolt. The formal alliance of the Hungarian, Saxon, and Székely leaders, known as the Union of the Three Nations, became an important element of the self-government of Transylvania. The Orthodox Romanian knezes ("chiefs") were excluded from the Union.
The Kingdom of Hungary collapsed, and the Ottomans occupied parts of Banat and Crișana in 1541. Transylvania and Maramureș, along with the rest of Banat and Crișana, developed into a new state under Ottoman suzerainty, the Principality of Transylvania. The Reformation, initiated in Germany by Martin Luther in 1517, encouraged the spread of Protestantism across the region; by 1568, the Edict of Torda formally granted local communities the right to choose their own preachers, sanctioning the existence of four "received" religions (Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Unitarianism. The Romanians' Orthodox faith remained only tolerated, although they made up more than one-third of the population, according to 17th-century estimates. In June 1609, Gabriel Báthory freed the Romanian Orthodox clergy from both taxation and service demands.
The princes of Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia joined the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire in 1594. The Wallachian prince, Michael the Brave, united the three principalities under his rule in May 1600. The neighbouring powers forced him to abdicate in September, but he became a symbol of the unification of the Romanian lands in the 19th century. Although the rulers of the three principalities continued to pay tribute to the Ottomans, the most talented princes—Gabriel Bethlen of Transylvania, Matei Basarab of Wallachia, and Vasile Lupu of Moldavia—strengthened their autonomy.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Romania”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.