Romania is located in the northern hemisphere of the Globe, in the southeast of Central Europe, at its contact with Eastern Europe and the Balkan Peninsula and at the intersection of important traffic axes. The surface of Romania is of 238 391 km2, representing 4.8% of the territory of Europe and 5.4% of the surface of the European Union.
The state borderhas a total length of 3,149.9 km, Romania’s neighbors being the Republic of Moldova in the northeast, Ukraine in the north, Hungary in the northwest, Serbia in the southwest and Bulgaria in the south, to which are added 193, 5 km representing the length of the maritime border.
The reliefof our country is made up of mountains, hills and plains arranged in an amphitheater, concentrically, on an altitude difference of 2,544 m between the level of the Black Sea and the highest peak in the Carpathians, the Moldoveanu peak. The mountainous area, the Carpathian Mountains, represents 31% of the country’s surface, these being often compared to an orographic fortress with the Transylvanian Plateau inside. The longest volcanic chain in Europe is located in the Eastern Carpathians, and the Western Carpathians are home to important resources of gold and silver ores.
Romania’s position on the globe, halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, determines the existence in our country of a temperate-continental climate with oceanic influences in the western and central regions, Mediterranean in the southwest, continental-excessive in the east, Scandinavian-Baltic in northeast of the country and Pontic in the southeast.
The territory ofRomania is administratively organized in: communes (with component villages), cities (some declared municipalities) and counties. The counties, numbering 41, and the Municipality of Bucharest represent the traditional administrative-territorial units in Romania, reflecting the geographical, economic, socio-political conditions and the traditional and cultural connections of the population. Since 1998, the national territory has been organized in development regions that do not have legal personality, being set up to ensure the collection, elaboration and dissemination of statistical data at the level of the European Union.
The Romanian rural area covers an area of 207,522 km 2, representing 87.1% of the country’s surface and concentrates 9.2 million inhabitants (46.0% of the total population).
Romania’s tourist potentialis characterized by a great diversity, as a result of the existence of various natural conditions, as well as of some valuable cultural resources. The natural potential is completed by anthropic tourist resources, especially cultural-historical, such as the existence of archeological sites, vestiges of Dacian, Roman and medieval fortresses, churches and monasteries, architectural buildings (palaces and castles), museums, richness and remarkable diversity of traditions. ethno-folk and popular architecture. Tourist flows are increasing, reaching in 2014 over 8.46 million tourists, of which 22.6% were foreign tourists.
In October 1993, Romania was received, as a full member, in the Council of Europe, and at the beginning of 1994 it concluded, with the North Atlantic Pact, the partnership for peace; in 2002, he obtained guest status, and in 2004 he officially joined NATO. At the beginning of 2007, Romania was received in the European Union as a member with full rights and obligations of this organization.