Romania

Romania stretches across southeastern Europe where the Carpathian Mountains arch around the Transylvanian Plateau and descend toward the Wallachian Plains and Moldavian hills. The Danube River borders the south before branching into the UNESCO-listed Danube Delta on the Black Sea, creating wetlands packed with pelicans, reeds, and migrating fish. Beech and spruce forests shelter brown bears and lynx, limestone caves run beneath Apuseni peaks, and vineyards and orchards line the valleys around Cluj-Napoca and Iași.

The state operates as a semi-presidential republic with a president elected nationwide and a prime minister leading the government accountable to Parliament. Counties known as județe, along with Bucharest municipality, manage transportation, healthcare, and emergency services, while communes and towns deliver local utilities and cultural programming. Romania is a member of the European Union, NATO, and Black Sea cooperation forums, working on cross-border infrastructure, cybersecurity, and disaster relief.

History traces Dacian tribes, Roman conquest that gave rise to Latin-based Romanian language, and medieval principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania that alternated between Ottoman, Habsburg, and local control. The 1859 union of Moldavia and Wallachia formed the Romanian state, and World War I alliances expanded its territory. Romania endured dictatorship during World War II and communist rule afterward, but the 1989 revolution in Timișoara and Bucharest restored democracy and opened pathways to European integration.

Romania's economy blends agriculture of grains, sunflowers, and sheep with automotive manufacturing, IT outsourcing, aerospace components, and energy. Engineers develop satellites and electric buses, and oil and gas fields in the Black Sea combine with hydropower on the Danube and micro-hydro plants in mountain valleys. Technology clusters in Cluj, Timișoara, and Bucharest incubate cybersecurity firms and gaming studios, while research institutes explore robotics, medical imaging, and climate resilience.

Cultural life combines fortified Saxon churches, wooden Maramureș monasteries, and Art Nouveau neighborhoods in Oradea. Folk music, hora dances, and woven blouses called ie appear at festivals, while writers such as Mihai Eminescu and sculptor Constantin Brâncuși influence arts worldwide. Food traditions include sarmale cabbage rolls, polenta known as mămăligă, and sweet cozonac bread, and UNESCO intangible heritage recognizes doina songs and bark-carving techniques. Romania contributes battlegroups to NATO, peacekeepers to United Nations missions, and science teams to the European Space Agency, emphasizing resilience and cooperation across the Danube Basin.