69 Fun Facts About Romania

What is the capital and largest city of Romania?

Bucharest. Its name first appears in a 1459 document signed by Vlad the Impaler, who built a fortress there.

Romania's only coastline lies on which sea?

Black Sea. Ancient Greeks planted trading colonies along this coast, and one of them, Tomis, grew into today's port city of Constanța.

Which country lies across the Danube's Iron Gates gorge from southwestern Romania?

Serbia. Romania and what was then Yugoslavia dammed the gorge together in 1972, sharing the power equally and drowning the inhabited island of Ada Kaleh.

Which Roman poet was banished by Emperor Augustus to Tomis, now the Romanian city of Constanța?

Ovid. He blamed 'a poem and a mistake' without ever saying what the mistake was, and died in exile there about a decade later.

The Romanian language descends mainly from which ancient language?

Latin. Historians still debate where the language took shape after Rome left Dacia in the 270s, but it grew up cut off from its sister tongues among Slavic-speaking neighbours.

The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 by uniting Wallachia with which other principality?

Moldavia. The great powers wanted the two principalities kept apart, so each simply elected the same prince, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, within weeks of the other.

Romania gained independence from which empire in 1877?

Ottoman. Romania declared independence in May 1877 and fought beside Russia against its old overlord; the Treaty of Berlin recognised the new state a year later.

Romania's Great Union Day marks a 1918 assembly at Alba Iulia that voted to unite which region with the kingdom?

Transylvania. The mass assembly met as Austria-Hungary collapsed, and the peace treaties that followed more than doubled Romania's size.

Which Roman emperor conquered Dacia in 106 AD and turned much of it into a Roman province?

Trajan. He settled the new province with legionaries and colonists from as far away as Gaul, Spain and Syria, but Rome abandoned it under Aurelian in the 270s as attacks mounted.

DNA from a 40,000-year-old jawbone found in Romania's Peștera cu Oase revealed a recent ancestor of which kind?

Neanderthal. Some 6–9% of the modern human's genome was Neanderthal, more than in any other sequenced at the time, which put the mixing just four to six generations back.

Romania's tricolour flag is almost identical to the flag of which African country?

Chad. The two matched from 1989, when Romania dropped the communist emblem from the centre; in 2004 its president refused to change the flag, noting Chad had been independent only since 1960.

What is the currency of Romania?

Leu. The name means 'lion', a memory of the lion-stamped Dutch coins that circulated across the Balkans in the 17th century.

Which novelist set Dracula in Romania without ever travelling to the country?

Bram Stoker. He worked from library research, yet filled the 1897 novel with real places that visitors can still find today.

Which Marvel actor was born in Constanța and left Romania as a child after the 1989 revolution?

Sebastian Stan. He moved to Vienna at eight with his mother, a pianist, and won his first film part there before the two settled in New York State when he was twelve.

The Danube Delta is the main European breeding ground of which large waterbird?

Pelicans. Great white pelicans fly in each spring to raise their young among the delta's lakes and reed beds, which hold their largest population in Europe, and leave again in autumn.

Romania has more of which large wild animal than any other country in the European Union?

Brown bears. Romania banned trophy hunting of them in 2016, and within a few years villagers were complaining of bears raiding crops and killing livestock.

Romania's capital has its own version of which Paris monument, built to honour its soldiers of World War I?

The Arc de Triomphe. Troops home from the war of independence marched under a temporary wooden arch in 1878; a plaster-clad one followed in 1922, and today's stone arch was inaugurated in 1936.

Vlad the Impaler's 1462 Night Attack at Târgoviște targeted which sultan, the conqueror of Constantinople?

Mehmed II. Vlad's raiders stormed the camp hoping to kill him and failed, yet the sultan soon turned for home after passing a field of thousands of impaled captives.

Vlad the Impaler's name Dracula came from his father's membership of which chivalric order?

The Dragon. Emperor Sigismund founded the order to defend Christian Europe; Vlad's father joined around 1431 and became 'Dracul', which made his son Dracula, 'son of Dracul'.

Which castle near Brașov is marketed as 'Dracula's Castle', though Vlad the Impaler never lived there?

Bran. Queen Marie made the fortress a royal home, the communists seized it in 1948, and in 2006 it was handed back to her grandson, a New York architect.

Historian Radu Florescu places Vlad the Impaler's birth in which UNESCO-listed Saxon town?

Sighișoara. Vlad's father was living there in exile from Wallachia, in a stone house on the main square, when the future prince was born around 1431.

Which Neo-Renaissance royal residence at Sinaia was begun in 1873 as a summer home for King Carol I?

Peleș Castle. Built with its own power plant, it is billed as Europe's first castle lit by electricity; the communists seized it from the royal family in the late 1940s and made it a museum.

Guinness names which Romanian landmark the world's heaviest building?

Palace of the Parliament. Some 700 architects worked on the marble giant for Ceaușescu, and a whole district of the old capital was razed to make room for it.

Which US president paid an official visit to Ceaușescu's Romania in August 1969, two weeks after the Moon landing?

Richard Nixon. Ceaușescu was then steering Romania away from Soviet foreign policy, and Gerald Ford repeated the visit six years later to the day.

Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad on which date in 1989?

Christmas Day. A secret military tribunal convicted the couple and they were shot at once; film of the trial and the bodies was soon shown on television in Romania and around the world.

The Romanian revolution of December 1989 began in which western city?

Timișoara. Crowds gathered there to defend a dissident pastor, László Tőkés, from the authorities, and within ten days the protests had spread and toppled the regime.

What was the name of Ceaușescu's feared secret police?

Securitate. Set up in 1948 with Soviet guidance as the centre of a vast security network, it was dissolved days after Ceaușescu fell and its work split among new agencies.

Ceaușescu enjoyed a surge in popularity in 1968 for publicly condemning what?

The invasion of Czechoslovakia. He had gone to Prague days earlier to back its reformist leader, and Romania sent no troops when its Warsaw Pact allies marched in.

Which Romanian mountain road was blasted across the Carpathians in the early 1970s for military use under Ceaușescu?

The Transfăgărășan. Army crews cut it over the Făgăraș Mountains with dynamite to move troops, and it is now driven for pleasure as one of Romania's great scenic routes.

Nadia Comăneci scored her history-making perfect 10s at the 1976 Olympics in which city?

Montreal. Her first 10 came on the uneven bars, where the scoreboard flashed 1.00, and the 14-year-old went on to collect seven perfect scores at those Games.

Which coach discovered Nadia Comăneci at age six and later trained America's Mary Lou Retton to an Olympic title?

Béla Károlyi. He defected to the United States during a 1981 gymnastics tour, and three years later his new pupil Retton was Olympic all-around champion.

Which Romanian 'Maradona of the Carpathians' played for both Real Madrid and Barcelona?

Gheorghe Hagi. Back home he founded his own club and academy near Constanța in 2009, and 'Hagi's Kids' won the Romanian league with him as coach in 2017.

Which Romanian club became the first Eastern European team to win the European Cup, in 1986?

Steaua București. After a goalless final against Barcelona in Seville, goalkeeper Helmut Duckadam saved all four of the Spanish side's penalties in the shoot-out.

Romania played at all three World Cups of the 1930s, a feat matched by which of these teams?

Brazil. France and Belgium were the only others, and for the first, in Uruguay in 1930, Romania was one of just four European teams to make the long sea voyage.

Which Romanian was the first ATP world No. 1 and the first sportsman to sign with Nike?

Ilie Năstase. Nicknamed 'Nasty' for the rows that brought him fines and disqualifications, he still won the 1973 French Open without dropping a set.

Whom did Simona Halep beat 6–2, 6–2 in the 2019 Wimbledon final to win her second Grand Slam title?

Serena Williams. Halep had won only one of their ten earlier matches, yet made just three unforced errors to become the first Romanian to win a Wimbledon singles title.

Romania alone among Warsaw Pact countries defied the Soviet-led boycott of the Summer Olympics held in which city?

Los Angeles. The Romanians drew some of the biggest cheers of the opening parade, then won 20 events to finish second in the medal table behind the hosts.

Which Romanian pioneer of modern sculpture made Bird in Space?

Constantin Brâncuși. Short of money, he walked most of the way from Romania to Paris, selling his watch to pay for a boat across Lake Constance.

Which art movement did the Romanian-born poet Tristan Tzara help found in Zurich during World War I?

Dada. Born Samuel Rosenstock in Moinești, he joined a fellow Romanian artist in Zurich, where his rowdy shows at the Cabaret Voltaire and his manifestos launched the movement.

Which poet, author of Luceafărul, is regarded as Romania's greatest?

Mihai Eminescu. He worked a Romanian folk tale into the poem over ten years of drafts, published it in 1883 and died six years later, aged just 39.

Which Romanian-born writer received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Herta Müller. She lost her job as a factory translator for refusing to spy on colleagues for the secret police, and left Romania for Germany in 1987.

Which Romanian film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2007?

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. It follows a student helping her roommate through an illegal abortion in 1987, two decades after Ceaușescu outlawed the procedure to push up the birth rate.

A month-long classical music festival held every two years in Romania's capital honours which composer?

George Enescu. He taught the young Yehudi Menuhin, who came to play Bach at the very first festival, held three years after his teacher's death.

The Voroneț Monastery, one of Bukovina's painted churches, is famous for an intense shade of what colour?

Blue. The shade, known as 'Voroneț blue', fills frescoes added to the outside walls in 1547 and still vivid today, which is why the church is nicknamed the Sistine Chapel of the East.

Which medieval prince, named an 'Athlete of Christ' by the pope, founded the painted monastery of Voroneț?

Stephen the Great. He is said to have raised it in under four months to keep a promise to a hermit named Daniil, who had urged him to fight on against invaders.

The Merry Cemetery of Săpânța, known for painted crosses and humorous epitaphs, lies in which northern region of Romania?

Maramureș. A village woodcarver began the painted oak crosses in 1935, each with a rhyme teasing the dead for their faults as well as their virtues, and his successors still carve them.

An underground theme park near Turda, complete with a Ferris wheel, fills the chambers of a former what?

A salt mine. It closed in 1932, served as a shelter in World War II and then as a cheese store, and reopened for visitors in 1992.

Which city is the largest in Transylvania and often called the region's unofficial capital?

Cluj-Napoca. The second half of the name was added in the 1970s, reviving the Roman town of Napoca to stress the city's ancient origins.

What kind of drink is țuică, Romania's traditional spirit?

Plum brandy. Hosts traditionally pour it before the meal, alongside the appetisers, and its strength and bouquet change from one region to the next.

The Romanian staple mămăligă is most similar to which Italian dish?

Polenta. Both dishes go back to the grain porridge of Roman times, and were made from millet and other grains until maize arrived from the Americas in the 16th century.

On 1 March, Romanians celebrate mărțișor by giving what?

A lucky talisman. It hangs from a twisted red-and-white thread and is worn as protection through the change of season, until the wearer sees the first blossoming tree, swallow or stork.

Which Romanian city, called Hermannstadt by its German founders, was European Capital of Culture in 2007?

Sibiu. Its mayor that year, a physics teacher from Romania's small German minority named Klaus Iohannis, was elected the country's president in 2014.

Which Romanian king was forced to abdicate under Soviet occupation in 1947?

Michael I. In 1944, aged 22, he had the dictator Ion Antonescu arrested and ended Romania's war against the Allies, for which Moscow awarded him its Order of Victory.

Which Roman leader was planning to invade the lands of the Dacian king Burebista when he was assassinated?

Julius Caesar. Burebista had backed Pompey against him in Rome's civil war; Caesar and Burebista were murdered at around the same time, and the Dacian realm was then divided up.

Which Romanian-born writer helped launch the Theatre of the Absurd with The Bald Soprano?

Eugène Ionesco. He got the idea while trying to learn English from a textbook, whose stilted, obvious phrases became the play's nonsense small talk.

Romanian shares its alphabet with English today, but its oldest dated text, a letter of 1521, was written in which script?

Cyrillic. Most early Romanian texts used it, as the Slavonic church books of the time did, and the modern alphabet was officially adopted only around 1860.

As of 2025, which EU country ranks just above sixth-placed Romania by population?

Poland. Romania counted about 19 million people at its 2021 census, down from a peak of 23.2 million when communism fell.

The Danube Delta is shared between Romania and which other country?

Ukraine. Only a small northern slice crosses the border, and the whole delta is young land, built up in prehistoric times as river silt filled what had been an open bay.

Romanian physiologist Nicolae Paulescu published his findings on which hormone months before the Toronto team that won a Nobel Prize for it?

Insulin. War had cut short his experiments in 1916, when his pancreatic extract first steadied a diabetic dog's blood sugar, and the 1923 prize went to Banting and Macleod.

Romanian musician Gheorghe Zamfir is known around the world as a master of which instrument?

Pan flute. His 1977 recording of 'The Lonely Shepherd' with the bandleader James Last reached a new audience when Quentin Tarantino used it in Kill Bill.

In which team sport did Romania's men win four world championships between 1961 and 1974?

Handball. Romania's men took the world title in 1961, 1964, 1970 and 1974, the first nation to win it four times, yet their only world medal since is a bronze from 1990.

Roșia Montană's 2,000-year-old World Heritage mines were dug for which metal?

Gold. Mass protests in 2013 led Romania's lawmakers to reject a plan for Europe's largest open-pit gold mine here, and UNESCO put the site straight onto its Danger list in 2021 because mining could still resume.

Which Wallachian prince briefly brought all three Romanian principalities under his rule in 1600?

Michael the Brave. His union lasted only months before rebel nobles and an imperial army under General Basta drove him out, and Basta had him assassinated in 1601; later generations made him a national hero.

Romania and which other EU member became full members of the Schengen Area together on 1 January 2025?

Bulgaria. EU ministers turned both countries down in 2022 while letting Croatia in, so they joined in two steps: air and sea checks ended in March 2024, land border checks on 1 January 2025.

Which Romanian air base began a 2024 expansion meant to make it NATO's largest in Europe?

Mihail Kogălniceanu. The build near Constanța turns a base US forces have used since 1999 into a small city, with schools, shops and a hospital for 10,000 NATO troops and their families.

Which Romanian inventor made a short hop near Paris in 1906 in a monoplane that took off on wheels?

Traian Vuia. On 18 March 1906 at Montesson his machine ran along on its wheels and hopped about 12 metres through the air, showing that an aeroplane could lift off from ordinary ground.

Which stimulant did Romanian chemist Lazăr Edeleanu become the first to synthesise, in 1887?

Amphetamine. Chemists thought Edeleanu's compound useless for some 40 years, until American chemist Gordon Alles, hunting for a new asthma drug, had himself injected with it.

After Romanian, which language has the most native speakers in Romania?

Hungarian. About six percent of people in Romania call it their mother tongue; the communist regime merged the Hungarian university into a Romanian one in 1959, but today the law guarantees schooling in the language.

Most Romanians belong to which Christian tradition?

Orthodox. The great majority of Romanians belong to the Romanian Orthodox Church, whose ranks swelled in 1948 when the Communist regime forced the Greek Catholic Church to merge into it.