Romania

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Romania (dated: Rumania, Roumania; Romanian: România, IPA: ) is a country located in South-East Central 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. It 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 is a semi-presidential unitary state. As a nation-state, the country was formed by the merging of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859 and it gained recognition of its independence in 1878. Later, in 1918, they were joined by Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia. At the end of World War II, parts of its territories (roughly the present day Moldova) were occupied by USSR and Romania became a member of the Warsaw Pact. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Romania started a series of political and economic reforms that allowed for Romania to join the European Union on January 1, 2007.

Romania has the 9th largest territory and the 7th largest population (with 22 million people) among the European Union member states. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest (Romanian: Bucureşti /bu.kuˈreʃtʲ/ (help·info)), the 6th largest city in the EU with almost 2.2 million people. In 2007, Sibiu, a large city in Transylvania, 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 and of OSCE.

Etymology

The name of Romania (Rumania or România) comes from Român (Romanian) which is a derivative of the word Romanus ("Roman") from Latin. The fact that Romanians have said the name is a derivative of Romanus (Romanian: Român/Rumân) is mentioned as early as the 16th century by many authors, including Italian Humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia. The oldest surviving document written in the Romanian language is a 1521 letter (known as "Neacşu's Letter from Câmpulung") which notifies the mayor of Braşov about the imminent attack of the Ottoman Turks. This document is also notable for having the first occurrence of "Rumanian" in a Romanian written text, Wallachia being here named The Rumanian Land - Ţeara Rumânească (Ţeara from the Latin: Terra land). In the following centuries, Romanian documents use interchangeably two spelling forms: Român and Rumân. Socio-linguistic evolutions in the late 17th century led to a process of semantic differentiation: the form "rumân", presumably usual among lower classes, got the meaning of "bondsman", while the form "român" kept an ethno-linguistic meaning. After the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the form "rumân" gradually disappears and the spelling definitively stabilises to the form "român", "românesc". The name "România" as common homeland of all Romanians is documented in the early 19th century. This name has been officially in use since December 11, 1861.

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