Finnish

Noun

romania

1. The Romanian language.

Declension

Romania (pronounced /roʊˈmeɪniə/ ( listen) roe-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Rumania; Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, north of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south.

Romania emerged as principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia united under prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza in 1859 and as the Kingdom of Romania under the Hohenzollern monarchy, it gained recognition of independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. Romanian Independence Day is May 9, 1877. In 1918, at the end of the World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. At the end of World War II, parts of its territories (roughly the present day Republic of Moldova and the southern half of Odessa oblast (today in Ukraine) were occupied by the Soviet Union and Romania became a socialist republic, member of the Warsaw Pact.

With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the 1989 Revolution, Romania started a series of political and economic reforms. After a decade of post-revolution economic problems, Romania made economic reforms such as low flat tax rates in 2005 and joined the European Union on January 1, 2007. Romania is now an upper-middle income country with high human development, although within the European Union, Romania's income level remains one of the lowest.

Romania has the 9th largest territory and the 7th largest population (with 21.5 million people) among the European Union member states. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest (Romanian: Bucureşti [bukuˈreʃtʲ] ( listen)), the 6th largest city in the EU with 1.9 million people. In 2007 the city of Sibiu was chosen as a European Capital of Culture. Romania also joined NATO on March 29, 2004, and is also a member of the Latin Union, of the Francophonie, of the OSCE and of the United Nations, as well as an associate member of the CPLP. Romania is a semi-presidential unitary state.

Romania is an European country.

By Romanians

• "There is an untranslatable Romanian word that expresses with great precision the kind of unbearable longing and nostalgia that grips one's heart when thinking of home. That word is dor. I have felt it many times. Nostalgia for the medieval squares of Sibiu steeped in golden light, longing for the outdoor cafes of Bucharest, drinking new wine, all of us young, intoxicated with poetry and song. I missed the smells of flowering linden trees, the blue reflections of deep mountain snow in the evenings, the old peasant villages that Ceauşescu's insanity almost wiped off the face of the earth. I missed the real fairy tales I was raised on. The story of the waters of life and death, youth without age, the tale of the sheep Mioriţa that recites the cosmic poetry of the sky, the story of the poplars that grew pears..."
  • Andrei Codrescu The Hole in the Flag 1991

By non-Romanians

• I was barely seventeen when I came to you. I was young and ignorant, but very proud of my native country, and even now, I am proud to have been born an Englishwoman... but I bless you, dear Romania, country of my joy and my grief, the beautiful country which has lived in my heart.
  • Queen Marie of Romania

External links