Bucharest

Bucuresti

Bucharest is the capital and largest city of Romania, with a population of approximately 2 million. It is situated in the southeast of the country on the Dimbovia River, a tributary of the Danube, and is by far Romania's most important urban centre.

Although there is some evidence of human settlement in the region as early as the Paleolithic Age, the city was probably founded in the 14th century. Bucharest was first known as Cetatea Dambovitei (Dambovita Citadel) and was both a military fortress and commercial centre on the trade routes to Constantinople. In 1459 it became a residence of Wallachian princes and, perhaps most notably, Vlad the Impaler, who mentions the name Bucharest for the first time in an act confirming the property of certain noblemen. Under Constantine Brancovan, the city became the capital of Wallachia in 1698, but it was not until 1861, after the union of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1859, that it was made capital of Romania.

In August 1944, after Romania's surrender to the Allies at the end of World War II, German planes severely bombed the city and Soviet troops arrived a few weeks later, by which time a coalition of leftists seized power. Bucharest served as the headquarters for Cominform from 1948 to 1956. But the worst was far from over.

In the 1980s, infamous Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu¹ demolished countless historic houses, churches, and monasteries in the old part of Bucharest in an attempt to transform it into a model Socialist-planned city and to make way for massive new state buildings. He then had the Dimbovia River rechanneled through Bucharest's southern portion.

Today, Bucharest is a modern city with all the amenities one would expect from a European metropolis. Both international and traditional cuisines are well represented, the city has many large parks, and of course, monuments and cultural institutions are plentiful.