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$Unique_ID{COW03013}
$Pretitle{360}
$Title{Romania
Chapter 1. Profile of Romania}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald E. deKieffer}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Romania, Washington DC}
$Subject{romania
romanian
political
country
war
world
economic
national
population
state}
$Date{1990}
$Log{Table 1.*0301301.tab
Table 2.*0301302.tab
Table 3.*0301303.tab
Table 4.*0301304.tab
}
Country: Romania
Book: Doing Business with the New Romania
Author: Donald E. deKieffer
Affiliation: Embassy of Romania, Washington DC
Date: 1990
Chapter 1. Profile of Romania
GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE
At 91,699 square miles (237,500 square km) Romania's area is about the
same as Oregon and slightly smaller than Great Britain, ranking 12th in
Europe.
Romania's boundaries total 1,959 miles (3,190.6 km) of which 1,294 miles
(2,153 km) are fluvial or maritime. Its neighbors are the Soviet Union (with a
frontier of 826 miles on the east and north); Hungary (275 miles on the west);
Yugoslavia (399 miles on the southwest); Bulgaria (367 miles on the south);
and the Black Sea (152 miles on the east).
Geomorphology
Romania forms a complex geographical unit centered on the core of the
Transylvanian Plateau, around which the peaks of the Carpathians and their
associated subranges and structural platforms form a series of crescents.
Beyond this zone, the extensive plains in the south and the east, developed by
the courses of the Danube and its tributaries, form another fertile zone
bounded by the nation's frontiers and the waters of the Black Sea.
This geographic unity is formed from the diversity of relief and
underlying rocks, a rich flow of water and an associated carpet of vegetation,
many species of animals and shades of climate and a variety of mineral
resources.
Flora and Fauna
Forests, extending all over Romania's territory in the past, have been
gradually replaced by farming lands. Today, about 25 percent of Romania's
total area is forest of which deciduous trees (oak, beech, elm, ash, sycamore
and lime) form approximately 71 percent. Resinous trees (29 percent of the
lumbering reserves) include spruce, fir and pine. Above 4,000 feet in
altitude, the land is covered with alpine meadows. For the past five years,
Romania has been engaged in an extensive reforestation program. For each tree
cut down in Romania today, the law requires three to be planted.
Romania's fauna is one of the most varied in Europe, consisting of both
common and extremely rare species. The mountain areas shelter chamois, brown
bear, carpathian stag, wolf, lynx, martin and other furry creatures. Bear,
fox, wild boar, deer, partridge and quail are typical of the highlands and
plains. The Danube Delta is inhabited by hundreds of species of birds both
migratory and local. The water fauna is also differentiated according to
altitude. The swift mountain streams are populated with trout, and the hill
rivers with barbel. In the plains, the rivers and lakes are alive with carp,
bream and pike. Sturgeons abound in the lower Danube waters, and dolphins,
herring, mackerel and mullet in the Black Sea.
Climate
Romania's geographic situation in the southeastern portion of Europe
has endowed it with a climate that is transitional between the temperate
regions and the harsher extremes of the continental interior. In the central
and western portions of the nation, humid Atlantic characteristics prevail; in
the southeast, the continental influence of the Russian plains makes itself
felt, and in the extreme southwest there are touches of milder
sub-mediterranean influences. This overall pattern is substantially
modified by the rugged relief patterns of the country, and there are many
climatic zones induced by a complex series of altitudinal changes.
The average annual temperature is 52 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees
Celsius) in the south and 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) in
the north, although there is much variation according to altitude and
related factors. Extreme temperatures range from 111 degrees F (44 degrees C)
in the south, to -36 degrees F (-38 degrees C) in the mountainous areas. The
average annual rainfall amounts to 26 inches (660 millimeters), but this
conceals very high rainfall in the Carpathians reaching about 55 inches (1,400
millimeters) a year, and low rainfall in the southeast -about 16 inches (400
millimeters) a year.
The most frequent winds are humid, blowing from the northwest, although
the strongest winds are often the drier ones coming from the northeast. A hot
southwesterly wind, the Austru, blows over western Romania, particularly in
summer. In winter, cold, dense air masses encircle the eastern portions of the
nation, with icy northeasterly winds known as the Crivat blowing from the
Western Russian Steppes, while the oceanic air masses from the Azores, blowing
over the west of the country, bring rain to soften the effect of the severe
cold.
[See Table 1.: Average Maximum Daily Temperatures]
HISTORY
Recent archaeological excavations have revealed traces of uninterrupted
habitation in Romania since the Paleolithic Age. The great Indo-European
migration in the third mellinnium B.C. brought significant changes in the
ethnic composition of the current Carpathian-Danubian area. During the Bronze
Age (second millennium B.C.), the Thracian people took shape in this region.
In the first millennium B.C., the Dacians acquired a definite identity among
the other Thracian tribes in the Balkan Peninsula and established, in the
latter half of that millennium, an original civilization of their own. The
Dacians, described by Herodotus as "the most valiant and righteous of the
Thracians," developed a society which honored music, astronomy and medicine.
In the first century B.C., an independent Dacian state ruled by
Burebista (70-44 B.C.) spread from Bohemia (current-day Czechoslovakia) to the
Black Sea, including the Greek cities on the coast. The Dacian state,
temporarily divided after Burebista's death, re-emerged during the reign of
Decebalus (87-106 A.D.). During this period, the Dacians successfully repelled
incessant Roman attempts to incorporate the region into the Roman Empire.
Finally, in 101-102 A.D. and 105-106, Rome waged two wars, conquering
Dacia. Most of the country became a Roman province for 165 years. By adopting
the Romans' language and culture, the native Dacians became Romanized, and a
new Latin-speaking Daco-Roman people was formed. After Roman military forces
withdrew in 271 A.D., the Daco-Romans stayed on. They engaged in farming and
herding, and survived the invasions of the Nomadic people (Goths, Huns, et
al.) in the 6th through 13th centuries. Christianity began to spread in the
3rd century, and after the great schism of 1054, the Romanians remained in the
fold of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Written sources mention the emergence of the earliest Romanian feudal
states in Transylvania (10th century), Dobruja (10th century), and east and
south of the Carpathians (12th-13th centuries). In the 11th-13th centuries,
the Hungarians, who had settled in Pannonia by the end of the 9th century,
conquered the Transylvanian territory. These areas were eventually
incorporated into the Hungarian Kingdom. Until 1526, however, Transylvania
enjoyed a significant level of autonomy under Hungarian rule. The Romanian
dukedoms east and south of the Carpathians formed the independent states of
Wallachia (1330) and Moldavia (1365). An independent feudal state which later
united with Wallachia was also established in Dobruja, the region between the
Danube and the Black Sea, in the first half of the 14th century.
Middle Ages
Although the Romanians lived in three separate territories (Wallachia,
Moldavia and Transylvania) during the Middle Ages, their economic, political
and cultural links were preserved and they retained a definitive national
identity. By the end of the 14th century, the Ottoman Empire extended as far
as the Danube. The