Romania Today

Official name: Romania (a name adopted in 1862, after the 1859 Union of the Romanian Principalities of Wallachia “Tara Romaneasca” and Moldavia)

Form of government: republic

International status: member of UNO (since 1955), UNESCO (since 1956), the Council of Europe (since 1993), NATO (since 2004), European Union (as of January the 1st, 2007)

Capital: Bucharest (municipality situated in the south of the country, with an area of 228 square km) - the political, administrative, economic, financial and cultural centre of Romania, first documented in 1459.

Geographical position: state in the south-east of Central Europe, in the north of the Balkan Peninsula, on the lower Danube and bordering on the Black Sea. From west to east, Romania is crossed by 9 meridians (between 20 degrees 15 minutes 44 seconds longitude West and 29 degrees 41 minutes 24 seconds longitude East). From north to south, Romania is crossed by some 5 parallels (between 48 degrees 15 minutes 6 seconds latitude North and 43 degrees 37 minutes 7 seconds latitude South).

Area: 238,391 square kilometers. Arable land accounts for 39% of this area, woodland for 28%, pasture for 20.5%, waters and lakes for 4%.

Borders: around 3,175 kilometers, of which one-third is land borders and two-thirds are on waters (the Tisa and Prut rivers, the Danube river and the Black Sea)

Neighbors: Hungary (to the west and north-west), Ukraine (to the north and east), Republic of Moldova (to the north-east and east), the Black Sea (to the south-east), Bulgaria (to the south) and Serbia (to the south-west and west)

Official language: Romanian - a neo-Latin language

National Day: 1 December on that date, in 1918 all historical provinces inhabited mainly by Romanians were united in a ceremony held at Alba Iulia, in the centre of the country)

Flag: Romania has a tricolor flag (blue, yellow and red) which has not suffered major changes in the course of its history. The colors are placed vertically, in 3 bands of equal width, with the cobalt blue near the mast, followed by yellow-chrome and red-vermilion.

National anthem: “Awake, ye, Romanian”. The lyrics were written by the 1848 Romantic poet Andrei Muresanu and the music by poet and singer Anton Pann

Coat-of-arms: The central element of the current emblem is the golden eagle with a cross (a symbol of Latinity, courage, power and determination), standing on an azure shield (symbolizing the sky). The eagle holds in its talons a scepter and a sabre (the insignia of sovereignty). On the bird’s chest there is a quartered escutcheon with the symbols of the historical Romanian provinces (Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Maramures, Banat and Crisana, the territories bordering on the Black Sea)

Official time: Eastern Europe time: GMT + 2 hours (winter), GMT + 3 hours (summer). Daylight saving time applies from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October

Currency: leu (plural: lei) divided into 100 bani. Local convertibility of the leu was introduced in November 1991. As of 1 July 2005 the national currency was re-nominated. The National Bank of Romania decided to cut 4 zeroes off its tail. The international code of the new leu is RON. Romania hopes that after it joins the European Union it will switch to the European single currency, the euro, by 2012 - 2014.

Separation of powers: the state is organized according to the principle of the separation and balance of powers - the legislative, the executive and the judiciary - within a constitutional democracy (according to Romania’s 2003 Constitution)

The executive power:
The President of Romania - Traian Basescu (since December 2004, re-elected in December 2009 for a 5-year term); the President is elected by direct, universal suffrage, for two terms at the most, which can be consecutive terms.
The Prime Minister - Emil Boc.

The legislative power: Two-chamber Parliament (the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate), elected by universal suffrage.

Population: 21.68 million, ranking 9th in Europe (stable population, according to the general census of 18 March 2002). As against the previous census (1992), the population decreased by one million, due to the dramatic fall in the birth rate and to external migration.
Outside Romania’s borders there are 10 - 12 million ethnic Romanians or people of Romanian origin. The largest Romanian communities are in the Republic of Moldova, the USA, Canada, Ukraine, Serbia, Germany, Israel, Hungary, Greece, Albania and also in Australia, South Africa and South America. Growing communities of Romanians who go abroad to work, in particular to Italy and Spain.

Population density: 90.9 inhabitants per square kilometer

Residential environment: 52.7% of the population concentrated in urban areas

Number of people who graduated from higher education institutions: 1.37 million people (7% of the total number). The structure of the school population points to a significant growth at the level of higher education, while the illiteracy rate stood at 2.6% of the total population

Average number of people per household: 2.92

Ratio of people according to sex: at 1000 males there were 1051 females. On March 18th 2002 , 11.11 million people (51.3%) were females, while 10.57 million (48.7%) were males

The average age of the population: 38.1 years. The average age of the female population (39.4 years) is higher than the age of the male population (36.7).

Ethnic structure: 89.5% of Romania’s population consists of Romanians, 6.6% - Hungarians, 2.5% - Rroma / Gypsies, while Germans and Ukrainians account for 0.3% each

Mother tongue: 91% of the country’s population declared Romanian as their mother tongue, 6.7% - Hungarian, 1.1% - Romany, 0.3% - Ukrainian, 0.2% - German

Religious structure: 86.8% of the total population is of Orthodox religion, 4.7% - Roman-Catholic, 3.2% - Reformed, 1.5% - Pentecostal, 0.9% - Greek-Catholic, 0.3% - Unitarian, 0.3% - Muslim, under 0.1% - Mosaic or Augustan denomination.