Minorities of Romania

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Lesser minorities of Romania (under 100,000 members)

The principal minorities in Romania are Hungarians (Szeklers and Magyars) (especially in Harghita, Covasna and Mureş) and Roma people (commonly known as ţigani), with a declining German population (in Timiş, Sibiu, Braşov) and smaller numbers of Poles in Bucovina (Austria-Hungary attracted Polish miners, who settled there from the Kraków region in Poland in the 19th century), Serbs, Croats, Slovaks and Banat Bulgarians (in Banat), Ukrainians (in Maramureş and Bukovina), Greeks (Brăila, Constanţa), Turks and Tatars (in Constanţa), Armenians, Great Russians (Lippovans, in Tulcea) and others. Minority populations are greatest in Transylvania and the Banat, areas in the north and west, which were possessions of the Habsburg Empire (since 1867 the Austro-Hungarian Empire) until World War I. Even before the union with Romania, ethnic Romanians comprised the overall majority in Transylvania. However, ethnic Hungarians and Germans were the dominant urban population until relatively recently, and still are the majority in Harghita and Covasna counties.

Before World War II, minorities represented more than 28% of the total population. During the war 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.

Though Romanian troops participated in the destruction of the Jewish communities of Bessarabia and Bukovina, most Jews from Romania survived the Holocaust. Mass emigration, mostly to Israel and United States, has reduced the surviving Jewish community from over 300,000 to less than 6,000. In recent years, more than two-thirds of the ethnic Germans in Romania have emigrated to Germany, leaving behind roughly 60,000.

In the minority-friendly Romanian voting law, all government-recognized ethnic minorities in Romania had been granted each a seat in the Chamber of Deputies since the fall of the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime. This is a list with all ethnic groups from Romania with more than 1,000 persons:

[edit] Hungarian minority in Romania

Main article: Hungarian minority in Romania

Map of Romanian counties with the Hungarian population highlighted.

The Hungarian minority of Romania makes up 6.6 percent of the total population of Romania (1,431,807 citizens), and is the largest minority in Romania and one of the largest minorities in Europe.

For historic reasons, most ethnic Hungarians live in what is today known as Transylvania (where they make up about 20% of the population), an area that includes the historic regions of Banat, Crişana and Maramureş. They form a large majority of the population in the Harghita and Covasna counties and a large percentage in the Mureş county.

[edit] See also

• Armenians in Romania
• Aromanians
• Banat Bulgarians
• Crimean Tatars in Romania
• Greeks in Romania
• Krashovani
• Lipovans
• Polish minority in Romania
• Roma minority in Romania
• Serbs of Romania
• Tatars in Romania
• Romanian ethnic minorities parties
• Muslims in Romania