50 Fun Facts About Transylvania

The name Transylvania comes from medieval Latin and means what?

The earliest reference is a 1078 Hungarian document calling it 'ultra silvam'.

The German name for Transylvania, Siebenbürgen, refers to what?

The Latin equivalent was Septem Castra; the seven red towers still appear on the region's coat of arms.

What is the Hungarian name for Transylvania, from which the Romanian 'Ardeal' derives?

It was first recorded in the 12th-century Gesta Hungarorum as Erdeuleu, from a Hungarian phrase with the same meaning.

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

The Apuseni Mountains close it off to the west.

The mountains ringing Transylvania hold Europe's largest populations of which large animal?

The range also has the continent's biggest concentrations of wolves, chamois and lynx.

Which city, Romania's second largest, is Transylvania's biggest?

Its Hungarian name is Kolozsvár and its German name Klausenburg; 'Napoca' was added in 1974 to stress its pre-Roman roots.

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

Napoca was the Roman-era name of the settlement.

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

His nickname comes from the Latin for raven, the bird on his family crest.

In 2015, Transylvania's largest city held which continental title?

It was named European City of Sport in 2018, and Untold, Romania's biggest music festival, began there in 2015.

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

Known in German as Hermannstadt, it was the chief town of the Transylvanian Saxons and is famous for houses whose roof windows look like eyes.

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

The city, once the Saxon Kronstadt, was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1689.

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

Its other historic names include the Latin Corona and the Saxon Kronstadt.

Brașov's Strada Sforii, or Rope Street, holds what distinction?

Brașov also sits at the foot of Mount Tâmpa and is a base for the ski resort of Poiana Brașov.

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

Most historians agree Vlad the Impaler never lived there; the castle has only tangential links to him.

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

The Saxons of Brașov gave the castle to the royal family after 1920; it was returned to Marie's descendants in 2006.

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

There is no evidence the novel's author even knew the castle existed.

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

He also issued the first document listing the town's Romanian name; his son is thought to have been born there in the early 1430s.

Vlad the Impaler's byname 'Dracula' derives from his father's membership of which knightly society?

Vlad Dracul means 'Vlad the Dragon'; the son ruled the neighbouring principality of Wallachia three separate times.

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

He never visited the region; the Castlevania games and Hotel Transylvania films play on the same association.

Sighișoara's 64-metre landmark, built in the 13th century, is what kind of structure?

The citadel is one of the few fortified medieval towns in Eastern Europe still inhabited, and Vlad the Impaler is thought to have been born there.

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

Tourists are told Vlad the Impaler was once held prisoner within its walls.

The Transylvanian Saxons began settling under which mid-12th-century Hungarian king?

Despite the name, most came from Luxembourg, Flanders and the Moselle rather than Saxony.

Which Romanian president, elected in 2014, is a Transylvanian Saxon?

He rose through the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania and was a long-serving city mayor.

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

In the Middle Ages they guarded the Kingdom of Hungary's eastern border against Turkish raids.

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

The eagle stands for the Hungarians and the seven towers for the Saxon cities.

The first known recipe for kürtőskalács, the Székely 'chimney cake', appears in a 1784 cookbook by whom?

The dessert has since become a street-food staple across Hungary and Romania.

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

It covered Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians and Catholics; the Orthodox were merely 'tolerated'.

Which Transylvanian prince also became King of Poland?

The principality's golden age came later under Bethlen and George I Rákóczi.

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

It had dual suzerainty, Turkish and Habsburg, before the Habsburgs took full control in the 1690s.

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

The union lasted about a year and a half before he was murdered by agents of General Giorgio Basta.

Which 1867 event ended Transylvania's separate status and folded it back into Hungary?

It stayed part of Hungary within the Dual Monarchy until the end of World War I.

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

The date is now Romania's national holiday, Great Union Day.

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

Hungary protested that the new borders ignored ethnic realities, and the loss remains a sore point.

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

Romania got it back after World War II under the 1947 Treaty of Paris.

In which Transylvanian city were Romania's Ferdinand I and Marie crowned in 1922?

The city's name recalls the white ruins of the Roman fort of Apulum.

Roman Dacia was created in AD 106 after which emperor's wars against King Decebalus?

The Dacian capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia in the Orăștie Mountains, is now a UNESCO site.

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

It should not be confused with the Roman provincial capital built 40 km away.

Transylvania's seven UNESCO fortified-church villages were chosen from roughly how many surviving ones?

Six of the seven are Saxon villages and one is Székely.

The Turda Salt Mine produced table salt continuously from the Middle Ages until which year?

Its main chamber is 112 metres deep, and it reopened for visitors in 1992.

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

It climbs to 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?

The presenters had previously given the title to Italy's Stelvio Pass.

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

Its Roman name was Alburnus Maior, and a Canadian plan for a new cyanide-based mine sparked huge protests.

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

It is described as containing 'Europe's last intact forest'.

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

The ice inside is estimated at 75,000 cubic metres and up to 20 metres thick.

Which university in Transylvania's largest city has four faculties of theology, Europe's only one?

They are Orthodox, Reformed, Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic, reflecting the region's mix.

Which commander, once Voivode of Transylvania, led the 1456 defence of Belgrade that moved the Pope to order church bells rung daily at noon?

He had served as Voivode of Transylvania and regent of Hungary; his son later became king.

Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1002 when which king defeated his uncle Gyula?

It was then governed by a voivode appointed by the Hungarian king until 1526.

Which 1888 travel book by Emily Gerard helped inspire Bram Stoker to set Dracula in Transylvania?

Bela Lugosi, one of the first screen Draculas, was himself born in Lugos, now Lugoj in present-day Romania.

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

Published in 1787, it counted 1,440,986 inhabitants but recorded no breakdown by ethnicity.

Under Romania's post-1968 county system, how many counties make up broader Transylvania?

The historical voivodeship was much smaller at 55,146 square kilometres, roughly the nine core counties of the plateau.