Where Is Transylvania?
After being for millennia under the Hungarian Empire, the territory of Transylvania was bound to the Kingdom of Romania under after the World War I. It is still a moving issue for many Hungarians. Transylvania was made famous worldwide by the Irish author Abraham Bram Stoker’s novel ‘Dracula’. Transylvania is defined by the Romanian government as the entire region of Romania west of the Carpathian Mountains. The region covers 16 countries and it is also a big tourist destination.
The circumstances under which Transylvania was merged into Romania are still disputed. Romania was neutral during the World War I, when the allies enticed the national leadership to join them against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Romania signed a secret treaty with the allies and jumped into the war two years after it started. After losing the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire began to break up into several smaller sovereign nations and Transylvania was one of them. It was under these conditions that Romania ratified the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 which made Transylvania a part of the Romanian Empire and the allies (mainly the United States, the United Kingdom and France) recognized it.
Hungarians (20%) and Roma (3.3%) are two big minorities in Transylvania. It is rich in mineral resources and accounts for 35% of Romania’s GDP. The main industries are steel, chemicals and textile. The average income of a person is Transylvania is roughly 10% higher than the rest of the people in the country. The Bran Castle, also known as Dracula’s castle, is a major tourist destination.
Category: Geography
History is not something to be learn and studied based on “short version & fast facts”. Transylvania was always a separate principality inside the Habsburg empire, and apart of the kingdom of Hungary only from 1870 until 1918 (much less than a millenia). Union of Transylvania with the kingdom of Romania has nothing to do with the treaty of Trianon. It was in Paris, at the peace conference that the decision of the national assembly of the representatives of the people of Transylvania (minorities included) to unite with the kingdom of Romania taken in ALBA IULIA on first December 1918 (long before Trianon) was recognized by the European powers. So there is no dispute on the circumstances under which Transylvania united with Romania, maybe only in the heads of some ignorant nationalist extremists.