ROMANIA at a GLANCE
National Statistics Board (INS)

Population 19,700,000

Size 238,000 sq km, 93,000 sq miles

GDP  $245 billion (2017)

GDP PPP $23,000 (per capita 2018)

Literacy 96%

Ethnic groups Romanian 87%, Hungarian 6.6%, Roma 5%, Ukrainian 0.3%, German 0.3%, Russian 0.2%, Turkish 0.2%, other 0.4% (2002)

Languages Romanian (Latin) (details), Hungarian, German, plus others

Religions Eastern Orthodox (majority), Catholic, Greco-Catholic, Unitarian, Evangelical/Lutheran Protestant

Historic events (timelines)

1859 – Wallachia and Moldavia unite

1881 – Monarchy established (Carol I) w. Parliamentary system and current tricolor flag adopted

1920 – Romania gains Transylvania

1941 – Collaboration w. Nazi Germany

1944 – Coup turns govt against Germany

1947 – Dec: King Michael forced to abdicate; Communists take-over
1989 – Dec: Communist regime overthrown (Ceausescu killed)

1992 – First free post-Communist elections

2005 – EU Accession Treaty Signed

2007 – EU Membership Formalized
2014 – Romanian open access to EU labor market
WIKIPEDIA on ROMANIA: see

DID YOU KNOW . . .

– The first jet plane to fly was invented by a Romanian, Henri Coanda see

– The game of baseball was perhaps first played in Romania and called “Oina”

– First evidence of “writing” was discovered in the Danube basin (before Summerian)

– Oil first exploited commercially in 1857 see, two years before oil discovered in Pennsylvania
– First compressed gaz operation in Europe – 1914 see

– Unitarian Church was founded in Cluj, Transylvania

– 2300 Allied airmen died in bombing raids on Ploesti’s oild fields in WW II

– The “Desert Fox” Rommel first fought as an officer on the Romanian front in WW I and was defeated in his battle zone of Onesti (Hill 789)

– The modernist “Dada” movement of the 1920s was co-founded by a Romanian<