The Central Region - Geography and history
The Central Region has an area of 34 100 km2, representing 14.3% of Romania's territory. Due to its position, the Central Region borders six of the other seven developing regions.
As of 31 December 2000, the region's administrative organisation was the following: six counties (Alba, Brasov, Covasna, Harghita, Mures, Sibiu); 32 towns and 18 municipalities, 334 communes and 1 823 villages.
The geography includes important parts of the Romanian Carpathians, the hilly zone of the Transylvania Plateau and the depressions from the connection area between the hilly and the mountain areas. The mountain area covers over 47% of the Central Region's area, including the eastern, southern and western sides of the region. On the Central Region's territory, at the boundary to the South Region, there are the highest peaks in Romania: the Moldoveanu (2 544 m) and Negoiu (2 535 m), both located in the Fagaras Massif. The hilly area includes the entire Târnavele Plateau and the eastern part of the Transylvania higher plain.
The climate of the Central Region is temperate-continental, changing by altitude. In the intra-mountainous depressions located in the eastern side of the region inversions of temperature often occur, the cold air remaining here for long time.
The hydrographical network is rich, and is composed of the waterways of the Mures and Olt rivers and also of their influents.
With its settlements since pre-historical times, the Central Region belonged in antiquity to the Dacian pre-state and state formations, afterwards it was conquered by the Romans and became a Roman province. Since 271 AC, when the Roman recession took place, the native population continued to live on these lands, in spite of the constant attacks of the migrating peoples. Between the 11th and the 12th centuries, the region was gradually conquered by the Hungarians, becoming part of the Hungarian Empire, enjoying its own extended autonomy.
In the 12th and the 13th centuries, in the south of Transylvania, the Saxons were colonised and in the east of the principality, the Szekler had the same fate. Having a large autonomy, these populations played an important role in Transylvania's history. The Central Region experienced eventful social times that marked Transylvania in the 15th and at the beginning of the 16th centuries. After the peasants' riot led by Gheorghe Doja (1514), the military defeat experienced by the Hungarian army in the battle against the Turks at Mohacs and after the internal politic events, Hungary was occupied by the Turks and turned into a pashalic, Transylvania becoming an autonomous principality, vassal to the Turks. The Principality had the same status with the Moldovan and the Wallachian ones. A very important event took place on 1 November 1599, when Michael the Brave, a Romanian voivode, entered the Alba Iulia fortress, Transylvania's capital city, making possible the union of Walachia, Transylvania and Moldova for a short time.
At the end of the 17th century, Transylvania went under the Habsburg occupation, succeeding to keep, under these conditions, a certain autonomy. The Romanians' desire to be recognised as a political nation was formulated and addressed by the Unite bishop John Klein, and constituted a real national political program for more than a century. At the end of the 18th century, Transylvania, and chiefly its western side, including the Apuseni Mountains, wass involved in the great peasant riot led by Horea, Closca and Crisan (1784).
1848, the year of the European revolutions was intensively experienced in Transylvania, the revolutionary ideas influencing the Romanians and the Hungarians, as well. The Romanians, gathered on the Freedom Plain at Blaj asked for their recognition as a political nation and for equal rights for all the nations of the principality, but their demand was refused and ignored by the Hungarian revolutionaries and by the authorities of those times. After the first world conflagration, on behalf of the desire expressed by the participants to the Great National Union of Alba Iulia, beginning with 1 December 1918, Transylvania and the other western provinces joined the Romanian Kingdom.
Natural resources
The national resources are very diverse and include important deposits of methane gas (in the domes of the Transylvania Plateau), salt (Praid, Ocna Mures, and Ocna Sibiului), nonferrous ores (in the Apuseni Mountains, at Zlatna, Abrud, Rosia Montana, and Baia de Aries), construction materials (basalt, andesite, marble, travertine, gravel, and sands), small deposits of inferior coal and numerous mineral water springs. The biggest gold deposit in Europe was recently discovered at Rosia Montana, in the Western Carpathians, its exploitation being planned for the next years. Except for the subsoil's richness, the Central Region has a remarkable hydroenergetic potential, developed in the hydro power plants on the Sebes and Olt rivers and also a valuable forestry (the forests and other forested lands cover 35.1% of the region's total area).
|
|