Arad is located in the western extremity of Romania, in the high Plain of Arad, 30 km from the Zarand Mountains, part of the Western Carpathians. Crossed from east to west by the Mureș River, it includes in its perimeter, in the Pădurice area, a natural lake.
The Arad Plain is located between the Zarand Mountains and the Ierului and Muresului Mort riverbeds, following the Crișurilor Plain south of the line of Pancota, Corporal Alexa, Olari, Simand and Sânmartin to the Mureș valley between Paulis and Pecica. Towards the mountain frame it has altitudes of almost 120 m, and in the west a little over 100 m. At the foot of the Zarand Mountains there is a strip of Piedmont plain that does not reach Mureș and that gradually passes into a slightly lower strip (a little over 100 m) with characters of wandering plain visible at Curtici. As a result of the extension of the manure cone of Mures, the Arad Plain is formed by gravels, sands and clays. To the east of Arad there are loess and loess deposits, and in the vicinity of Curtici, wind sands with fixed dune relief. Abandoned riverbeds and meanders, ridges, lakes and salt marshes are common in the wandering plain.
The climate of the city is moderate continental, with weak Mediterranean influences, with an average temperature of 21 ° C in summer and an average temperature of -1 ° C in winter.
At the 2002 census the city had a population of 178,827 inhabitants.
Arad is the most important node of the road and railway transport networks, national and trans-European, in western Romania. It is included in the Pan-European Corridor IV, which connects Western Europe with the countries of South-Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Arad International Airport (IATA code: ARW, ICAO code: LRAR) is located 3 km from the city center.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, Arad established itself as one of the most important economic centers in the region. In this sense, the evaluation made in 1937 is significant, according to which, compared to the activity of the 4001 companies, the city was considered as the strongest economic center in Transylvania and the fourth in Romania.
Factors such as the geographical position of the city, the intersection of major trade routes, and the ethnic and religious diversity of its inhabitants worked together to achieve this status. The same factors make Arad today one of the most prosperous cities in post-revolutionary Romania.
The main industrial branches are the construction and repair of rolling stock (Astra Wagons Arad, Astra Passenger Wagons), the machine building industry (Alcoa Fujikura, Leoni Wiring Systems, Maschio-Gaspardo, Takata Petri), the production of measuring and checking equipment and instruments ( Contor Group), garment industry, food industry, wood processing industry.
Arad has a rich cultural and historical heritage, offering visitors a real open-air museum of specific architectural styles of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, art and history monuments, theater performances, philharmonic concerts, fine art exhibitions, museum exhibitions of history, art and natural sciences, festivals and holidays.
Architecture lovers can admire buildings built in baroque, renaissance, eclectic, classical, neo-gothic or secession style.