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People
Cultural Heritage
Today, ethnic Romanians comprise almost 90 percent of Romania's total population of over 21 million. In contrast to their Slav or Hungarian neighbors, ethnic Romanians trace themselves to Latin-speaking Romans who in the 2nd and 3rd centuries C.E. (Common Era) conquered and settled among the ancient Dacians, a Thracian people.
Language
As a result of this heritage, the Romanian language -- although containing elements of Slavic, Turkish and other languages -- is a Romance language related to French and Italian. Primarily a rural, agricultural population, the medieval Wallachians and Moldavians maintained their language and culture despite centuries of rule by foreign princes. Once independent, the unified Romanian state took its modern name to emphasize its connection to the ancient Romans. Today, in addition to Romanian, Hungarian and German are some of the main languages also spoken in Romania.
Ethnicity
Ethnic Romanians aside, other resident ethnic groups include Hungarians, Roma, Germans, Ukrainians, Serbs, Croats, Russians, Turks, Armenians and Greeks. Minority populations are greatest in Transylvania and the Banat, areas in the north and west that belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire until World War I. Ethnic Romanians comprised the overall majority in Transylvania, even before union with Romania, but ethnic Hungarians and Germans were the dominant urban population there until relatively recently, and still are the majority in a few districts. In recent years, more than two-thirds of ethnic Germans in Romania have emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany.
Before World War II, minorities represented more than 28 percent of the total population. During the war, however, that percentage was halved, largely by the loss of the border areas of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina (to the former Soviet Union - now Moldova and Ukraine) and southern Dobrudja (to Bulgaria), as well as by the postwar flight or deportation of ethnic Germans.
Although Romanian troops participated in the destruction of the Jewish communities of Bessarabia and Bukovina, most Jews from Romania proper survived the Holocaust. Mass emigration, mostly to Israel, has reduced the surviving Jewish community from over 300,000 to less than 15,000.
Religious Affiliation
Religious affiliation tends to follow ethnic lines, with most ethnic Romanians identifying with the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Greek Catholic or Uniate church, reunified with the Orthodox Church by fiat in 1948, was restored after the 1989 revolution. The 1992 census indicated that one percent of the population was Greek Catholic, as opposed to about 10 percent prior to 1948. Roman Catholics, largely ethnic Hungarians and Germans, constitute about six percent of the population; Calvinists, Baptists, Pentecostals, and Lutherans make up another six percent. There are smaller numbers of Unitarians, Muslims, Jews and members of other religions.
Health and Welfare
In terms of health and welfare, Romanians have an average life expectancy at birth of 70 years (66 years for males, 74 years for females), according to recent estimates. The infant mortality rate is 18.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. Regarding literacy, an estimated 97 percent of the population, age 15 and older, can read and write (98 percent of males, 95 percent of females). About 4.3 percent of GDP is spent in the country on educational expenditures. About 5.4 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to sanitation, water, and health care is considered to be generally good, although lower than average for European countries.
Human Development
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI placed Romania in the high human development category, at 50th place. Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for research sources.
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