49 Fun Facts About Transylvania

The name Transylvania comes from medieval Latin and means what?

Beyond the forest: medieval Latin joined trans, 'across', to silva, 'forest', because thickly wooded mountains ring the region; the earliest documents spell it ultra silvam.

The German name for Transylvania, Siebenbürgen, is usually said to refer to what?

Seven Saxon fortified towns is the usual reading of Siebenbürgen, literally 'seven fortresses', though the origin is debated; the seven towers on Transylvania's coat of arms stand for those towns.

What is the Hungarian name for Transylvania?

Erdély grew out of the Old Hungarian Erdő-elü; Romanians borrowed it as Ardeal, and the region's medieval Latin name is thought to be a straight translation of the Hungarian one rather than the other way round.

Which mountain range forms Transylvania's natural border to the east and south?

The Carpathians curve around Transylvania's east and south like a wall, which is why castles such as Bran were built to guard the few passes through them.

The mountains ringing Transylvania hold Europe's largest population outside Russia of which large animal?

Brown bears: Romania holds several thousand, the most in Europe outside Russia, and bears raiding farms and wandering into towns have made hunting quotas a running national argument.

Which city, Romania's second largest at the 2021 census, is Transylvania's biggest?

Cluj-Napoca counted 286,598 residents in 2021, about 38,000 fewer than in 2011, yet it still ranked second only to Bucharest and is widely called Transylvania's unofficial capital.

Why did the communist authorities add 'Napoca' to Cluj's name in 1974?

To emphasise the city's pre-Roman roots: Napoca was the settlement's ancient name, which the Romans kept for their town, and Ceaușescu's regime revived it to claim an unbroken line from antiquity to modern Romania.

Which king of Hungary, patron of the Renaissance and founder of the Black Army, was born in Cluj in 1443?

Matthias Corvinus, born in 1443, ruled Hungary from 1458 to 1490; the name Corvinus comes from the Latin for raven, the bird on his family crest.

Which electronic music festival began in 2015 in the football stadium of Transylvania's largest city?

Untold launched in 2015, the year its host city was European Youth Capital, and after that single edition it was voted Best Major Festival at the European Festival Awards, ahead of the continent's giants.

Which Transylvanian city was European Capital of Culture in 2007, sharing the title with Luxembourg City?

Sibiu's 2007 partner was apt: many of the German settlers who built the city came from the Luxembourg region, and their dialect resembles Luxembourgish.

Brașov's Black Church is claimed to be the largest Gothic church in which region?

Southeastern Europe is the region usually named in the Black Church's billing; the town's German merchants donated Anatolian carpets to it over the centuries, and it now holds one of the largest such collections.

Between 1950 and 1960 the city of Brașov was renamed in honour of whom?

Stalin: a 1950 decree renamed Brașov Orașul Stalin, 'Stalin City', in his honour, and the old name came back only in 1960, seven years after the dictator's death.

Brașov's Strada Sforii, or Rope Street, is billed as one of Europe's what?

Narrowest streets: little more than a metre wide along its 80 metres, Rope Street was laid out as a corridor so that firefighters could cut between two parallel streets.

Bran Castle was built by Saxons in 1377 under a privilege from which king?

Louis I of Hungary granted the Saxons of Brașov the privilege to build Bran Castle in 1377, guarding the pass between Transylvania and Wallachia.

Bran Castle houses a museum devoted largely to the art and furniture of which royal?

The town of Brașov gave the castle to Queen Marie of Romania in 1920 and it became her favourite retreat; the communists seized it in 1948, and in 2006 it was handed back to her grandchildren.

Did Vlad the Impaler ever live at Bran Castle, according to most historians?

No, he never lived there: Vlad only passed through the Bran pass, once leading his army through it to raid Brașov; the castle's Dracula label is marketing.

While exiled in Sighișoara, Vlad the Impaler's father did what, breaking a royal monopoly?

Vlad II minted his own coins at Sighișoara although coinage belonged to Hungary's kings; King Sigismund had recognised the exile as Wallachia's lawful ruler and let him wait in Transylvania for his throne.

Vlad the Impaler's father was inducted in 1431 into which knightly society?

The Order of the Dragon, founded by King Sigismund, admitted Vlad II in 1431, earning him the byname Dracul, 'the Dragon'; Dracula means 'son of Dracul'.

Which Irish author wrote the 1897 novel that fixed Transylvania's association with vampires?

Bram Stoker, born in Dublin, published Dracula in 1897 without ever visiting Transylvania, relying on travel books and library research.

Sighișoara's 64-metre medieval landmark is what kind of structure?

A clock tower: it guards the main gate of Sighișoara's citadel, and among its carved figures the angels of Day and Night marked the start and end of the craftsmen's working day, at 6 am and 6 pm.

Corvin Castle, one of the largest castles in Europe, stands in which Transylvanian town?

Corvin Castle stands in Hunedoara; legend says three Turkish prisoners spent 15 years digging its courtyard well through rock after being promised their freedom for reaching water.

In a legend retold by the Brothers Grimm, the vanished children of which German town are said to resurface in Transylvania?

Hamelin: the Grimms record the tale that the Pied Piper's lost children came out of a cave in Transylvania, and one leading theory makes the piper a recruiter who led the town's young off to settle in the east.

Which Transylvanian-born physics teacher won Romania's presidency in a 2014 upset?

Klaus Iohannis, a Transylvanian Saxon and long-serving city mayor, beat the sitting prime minister in 2014, even though most of Romania's Saxons had emigrated to Germany after 1989.

The Székelys, a Hungarian-speaking people of eastern Transylvania, traditionally claim descent from whom?

The Székelys traditionally claim descent from Attila's Huns, a legend recorded in medieval Hungarian chronicles; in the Middle Ages they guarded the kingdom's eastern frontier as free border warriors.

On Transylvania's coat of arms, which two heavenly bodies represent the Székelys?

The Sun and the Moon are the Székelys' own old emblems and stand for the Székely Land on the arms; because Romania's state coat of arms includes Transylvania's, the pair still appears on the national emblem today.

Which spit-baked Székely pastry is known in English as chimney cake?

Kürtőskalács takes its name from kürtő, Hungarian for a flue or chimney, because the steaming hollow cone pulled off the spit looks like one; the oldest known recipe comes from a Transylvanian countess's cookbook.

The 1568 Edict of Torda is celebrated as Christian Europe's first legal guarantee of what?

The Edict of Torda, issued under John Sigismund in 1568, guaranteed freedom of religion for Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and Unitarians, while the Orthodox were merely tolerated.

Which Transylvanian prince also became King of Poland?

Stephen Báthory left Transylvania to his brother and was crowned King of Poland in 1576; he then beat Ivan the Terrible in the Livonian War and forced Russia to hand over Livonia.

For most of the 16th and 17th centuries, Transylvania was a vassal principality of which power?

The Ottomans were overlords of a principality that stayed self-governing: its princes played the sultan off against the Habsburg emperor until the Treaty of Karlowitz passed Transylvania to the Habsburgs in 1699.

Which Wallachian voivode briefly united Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania under his rule in 1600?

Michael the Brave ruled all three principalities for only a few months in 1600; he lost Transylvania that September and was murdered in August 1601 on the orders of General Giorgio Basta.

Which 1867 deal ended Transylvania's separate status within the Habsburg Empire?

The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 created the Dual Monarchy and merged Transylvania into Hungary, where it stayed until the end of World War I.

On 1 December 1918, Romanian delegates proclaimed the union of Transylvania with Romania in which city?

Alba Iulia hosted the 1,228 delegates who voted for union, and in 1922 King Ferdinand was crowned there as ruler of the enlarged country; 1 December is now Romania's national holiday.

Which 1920 peace settlement formally transferred Transylvania from Hungary to Romania?

The Treaty of Trianon, signed on 4 June 1920, stripped Hungary of about two-thirds of its territory, including Transylvania, which went to Romania.

What happened to Northern Transylvania under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940?

It was returned to Hungary: the German-Italian arbitration of 30 August 1940 gave Northern Transylvania to Hungary, and Romania recovered it after World War II under the 1947 Treaty of Paris.

Which river crosses Transylvania from east to west before joining the Tisza at Szeged?

The Mureș, Maros in Hungarian, is the Tisza's biggest tributary by volume, and it was a trade artery: in the Middle Ages Transylvanian salt was floated down it on rafts towards Hungary.

Rome's province north of the Danube was carved out after which emperor's two wars against King Decebalus?

Trajan's two wars against Decebalus, in 101-102 and 105-106, ended with the king's suicide and the creation of the province; Trajan's Column in Rome records the campaigns.

Sarmizegetusa Regia, in the Orăștie Mountains, was the capital of which ancient people?

Sarmizegetusa Regia was the Dacians' capital and holiest site until the Romans took it in AD 106; they then built their own provincial capital elsewhere and gave it the fallen city's name.

Which British royal owns a restored farmhouse in the UNESCO-listed Transylvanian village of Viscri?

King Charles III bought the old village house in 2006, when he was Prince of Wales, and has championed the preservation of Viscri, whose fortified church is on UNESCO's World Heritage list.

The Turda Salt Mine stopped producing salt in 1932 and now houses what deep below ground?

An amusement park: the mine's vast salt chambers now hold a Ferris wheel, mini-golf and rowing boats on a lake at the bottom; after mining stopped, the galleries had served as a wartime shelter and a cheese store.

Ceaușescu built the Transfăgărășan road in 1970–74 as a response to what?

Ceaușescu ordered the road after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, as a military route across the Făgăraș Mountains; it reaches 2,042 metres, second only to the Transalpina among Romania's paved roads.

Which British TV programme declared the Transfăgărășan 'the best road in the world' in 2009?

Top Gear's 2009 Romania special, with Clarkson, Hammond and May, crowned the Transfăgărășan the best road in the world, a title the show had earlier given Italy's Stelvio Pass.

Roșia Montană in the Apuseni Mountains, a UNESCO site since 2021, is famous for centuries of mining what?

Gold has been mined at Roșia Montană since Roman times, when it was Alburnus Maior; a Canadian company's plan for a new cyanide-based gold mine sparked huge protests in 2013.

Retezat, in southwestern Transylvania, holds what distinction among Romania's national parks?

It is the oldest: Retezat became Romania's first national park in 1935, after scientists led by the botanist Alexandru Borza and the cave explorer Emil Racoviță campaigned for the country to protect its wild places.

What natural feature makes Scărișoara Cave in the Apuseni Mountains remarkable?

An underground glacier: Scărișoara's block of ice is one of Europe's largest, and scientists drill cores from it to read how the region's climate has changed over thousands of years.

Which university in Transylvania's largest city has four faculties of theology?

Babeș-Bolyai was formed in 1959 by merging the city's Romanian and Hungarian universities, hence the double name; its four theology faculties are Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic and Reformed.

Which former Voivode of Transylvania led the 1456 defence of Belgrade, for which the Pope ordered daily church bells and prayers?

John Hunyadi broke Sultan Mehmed II's siege in July 1456 with a ragged peasant army fighting beside his own troops, then died within weeks of an epidemic that swept the camp.

Which king is credited with bringing Transylvania into the Kingdom of Hungary by ousting his own uncle, Gyula?

Stephen I, Hungary's first crowned king, marched on his mother's brother Gyula around 1003 and carried him and his family off as captives.

Which Transylvanian lake formed in the 1830s when a landslide dammed a valley, drowning a forest?

Lake Roșu, the Red Lake, formed when a landslide blocked a mountain stream in 1837 or 1838, accounts differ; the drowned firs' trunks still poke above the water, and Hungarians call it Gyilkos-tó, Killer Lake.

Which emperor ordered the first official Habsburg census to include Transylvania, in 1784?

Joseph II ordered the 1784 count, the first to cover Hungary and Transylvania; Hungarians nicknamed him the king in a hat, because he refused a coronation whose oath would have bound him to uphold the nobles' privileges.