A Black Sea and Danube country bridges Central and Southeast Europe
Romania follows the lower Danube north of the Balkans to the Black Sea’s northwestern shore, bordering Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Moldova. Its name goes back to the Latin romanus. Bones from the Peștera cu Oase cave, about 40,000 years old, are Europe’s oldest known Homo sapiens remains.
Salt was being extracted at Poiana Slatinei near Lunca between the fifth and fourth millennia BC, the earliest such evidence in Europe, and Neolithic proto-cities grew beyond 320 hectares. Greek colonies arrived on the Black Sea coast in the seventh century BC, and Burebista later became the first ruler to unite the Dacian tribes.
Decebalus held off Rome for years until Trajan’s army beat him in 106 AD and much of Transylvania, Oltenia and Banat became the province of Roman Dacia. Goths, Huns, Gepids, Slavs and the First Bulgarian Empire followed, and Hungary’s first king, Stephen I, planted Catholic bishoprics in Transylvania in the early eleventh century. Basarab I won independence for Wallachia at Posada in 1330, and Moldavia gained autonomy under Bogdan I around 1360. Mircea I, Vlad III and Stephen III of Moldavia resisted the Ottomans.
The oldest precisely dated document in Romanian, a 1521 letter from Câmpulung, calls Wallachia Țara Rumânească. Alexandru Ioan Cuza united Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859, independence from the Ottomans came in 1877, and Carol I became king in 1881. After World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina, Banat and Bessarabia joined to create Greater Romania.
Carpathian arcs and Transylvanian basins structure inland life while the Danube delta opens to the Black Sea. The country now holds 11 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, exports more car parts than it imports and belongs to the European Union and NATO.
Source: Romania
