Romania
Updated: Sep 18, 2022
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Country Name
Romania.
Location
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.
It shares land borders with Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, and Moldova to the east and has its opening to the Black Sea.
Capital
Bucharest.
Reason for Naming
Romania derives from the Latin Romanus, meaning "citizen of Rome".
Two spelling forms: român and rumân were used interchangeably until sociolinguistic developments in the late 17th century led to grammatical differentiation of the two forms: rumân came to mean "bondsman", while român retained the original ethnolinguistic meaning.
The use of the name Romania to refer to the common homeland of all Romanians—its modern-day meaning—was first documented in the early 19th century.
In English, the name of the country was formerly spelled Rumania or Roumania. Romania became the predominant spelling around 1975.
Romania is also the official English-language spelling used by the Romanian government. A few other languages (including Italian, Hungarian, Portuguese, and Norwegian) have also switched to "o" like English, but most languages continue to prefer forms with u, e.g. French Roumanie, German and Swedish Rumänien, Spanish Rumania (the archaic form Rumanía is still in use in Spain), Polish Rumunia, Russian Румыния (Rumyniya), and Japanese ルーマニア (Rūmania).
Flag
The current Flag of Romania was adopted on 27 December 1989. The first use of the Romanian flag was on 24 April 1867.
The flag consists of three equal vertical stripes of Blue, Yellow, and Red.
Like many other nations, Romania’s national flag is of a basic tricolor design, however, even though the design is simplistic, there is significant symbolism behind the colors chosen for the flag. The use of these colors dates back to the Wallachian uprising in 1821. During this time, it was determined that the colors used in what would one day be adopted as Romania’s national flag represented liberty, justice, and fraternity.
The blue color represents liberty, the yellow color symbolizes justice, while the Red represents the union of the nation.
Flag Facts:
- Romania’s flag is similar to the civil flag of Andorra.
- The flag is also very similar to the flag of Chad, except that the shades of blue are different. Chad asked the United Nations to look into the issue back in 2004, but no changes were made.
- The tricolor of Romania's flag is identical to the flag of Moldova.
Language
Romanian, which is a Romance language, is the country's only official language. Romanian is used as a primary language by nearly 90% of the population. Hungarian is the most frequently spoken minority language, spoken by around 6.7 percent of the population, who live in Transylvania, and Hungarian is used at certain local-level official offices in Romania. In addition to Hungarian, numerous additional minority languages are spoken across the nation, including Romani, which is used in local government administrative offices, including the educational system, in 79 cities and 1 town.
Ukrainian, German, Russian, Turkish, and Tatar are among the other minority languages. English and French are two of the many foreign languages spoken in Romania. From basic through upper secondary school levels, English is the principal foreign language taught in the public education system.
English is closely followed by French, which is spoken by 24% of the population and is the second most popular foreign language class in the public school system. Romania has the highest number of French learners in a non-French-speaking country.
Other less commonly spoken foreign languages in Romania are Italian, and German.
Religion
Romania is a secular state with no official religion. The majority of the population is Christian, with the majority of Orthodox Christians belonging to the Romanian Orthodox Church.
The second category is Protestants, who account for 6% of the overall population. Protestant churches include Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Lutheran denominations, among others.
Other denominations include Roman Catholicism (4.3%) and Greek Catholicism (4.3%).
The Romanians support religious freedom. Other faiths practiced in the nation include Islam, Judaism, and Other Beliefs, which account for 8.0 percent of the population.
Currency
Romanian leu (RON).
Time Zone
+03:00 GMT. (Summer Time)
+02:00 GMT.
Government Regime
Unitary semi-presidential republic.
Climate
Romania, has generally a continental climate, with cold winters and hot summers. The Black Sea coast has a slightly milder climate, but not by much since it often receives air masses coming from inland. Winter, from December to February, is cold throughout Romania. Snowfall is quite common, but not abundant; in inland plains, there are about thirty days of snowfall per year. In Bucharest, the ground is often covered with snow. During winter, temperatures are fairly uniform across the continental region and decrease mainly with increasing altitude. In the main cities located around sea level, the average daily temperature in January hovers between 0 °C and -2 °C. Summer, from June to August, is quite warm in the north highs are around 26 °C, while in Iasi, near the border with Moldova, they are around 28 °C.
Bucharest is warmer, and it's often hot: the maximum temperatures in July and August are 30 °C on average, and they quite easily reach 35 °C and even more. Sometimes, however, it can get hot even in the northern plains and hills.
Along the coast of the Black Sea, the weather in summer is nice and pleasantly warm, sometimes even hot, but tempered by the breeze. Summer is a fairly rainy season, mainly because of afternoon thunderstorms, which occur especially in May and July, and are most frequent and abundant in the mountains. Sometimes, these thunderstorms are so strong that they can cause floods.
The best time to visit Romania is from May to September.
International Phone Code
+40
Internet Code
.ro