The 41județe (English:counties) and themunicipality ofBucharest comprise the official administrative divisions ofRomania. They also represent theEuropean Union' sNUTS-3geocode statistical subdivision scheme of Romania.
The earliest organization intojudețe of the Principalities ofWallachia, respectivelyținuturi ofMoldavia, dates back at least to the late 14th century.[1] Eachjudeț, respectivelyținut, was ruled by ajude, respectivelypârcălab, an officially appointed person who had administrative and judicial functions in a manner inspired from the organization of the lateByzantine Empire.Transylvania, when it was part of the historicKingdom of Hungary (in the Middle Ages), anindependent Principality or aHabsburg domain (in the modern era until World War I) was divided intoroyal counties (Latin:comitatus), headed bycomes (royal counts) with administrative and judicial functions. The termjudeț started to be used inRomanian as a general term for all administrative divisions since the mid 19th century.
When modern Romania was formed in 1859 through theunion of Wallachia and rump Moldavia, and then extended in 1918 through theunion of Transylvania, as well asBukovina andBessarabia (parts of Moldavia temporarily acquired by respectively the Habsburgs, 1775–1918, and theRussian Tsars, 1812–1917), the administrative division was modernized using theFrench departments system as model. With the exception of theCommunist period, this system remained in place. Aprefect (from the Latinpraefectus) is appointed for eachjudeț. The prefect is the representative of the government in the county and the head of the local administration in the areas not devolved to local authorities. Until 1950, eachjudeț was divided into a number ofplăși (singularplasă), each administered by apretor (from the Latinpraetor), appointed by theprefect. Currently, Romania has no NUTS-4 units, the counties being composed directly ofcities (with or withoutmunicipality status) andcommunes.
As in all modern democracies, the political power in Romania is divided into three independent branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. Theprefect and his administration have only executive prerogatives. However, the territorial districts of the Romanian judicial system overlap with county borders, thus avoiding further complication. At the same time with local elections (of mayors and councilors for the cities and communes), a County Council (consiliu județean) is directly elected for each county, and, since 2008, the President of the County Council is also elected by direct vote. As of now, the legislative powers of county councils are quite reduced, but there are plans for more decentralization. (These plans, however, call for introduction of Regional Councils for the 8development regions of the NUTS-2 level.)
As of 1872,Romania was organized into 33 counties of which 17 were in Wallachia (12 inMuntenia and 5 inOltenia), and 16 were in Moldavia (13 inwestern Moldavia and 3 inSouthern Bessarabia:Cahul County,Bolgrad County,Ismail County).[2]
AfterIndependence, Romania lost Southern Bessarabia and receivedNorthern Dobruja. TheRomanian Old Kingdom was divided into 32 counties, with the following seats:
After theSecond Balkan War, Romania was awarded thesouthern part of Dobrudja, between theDanube,Beli Lom River,Kamchiya River, and theBlack Sea, which was divided into two counties:
Between 1919 and 1925 the specifics of the administrative organization in the new territories were kept. It consisted of about 76 counties or parts of counties.[4] In 1923 Romania adopted anew Constitution, and it unified the traditional administrative systems of Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia with that of theRomanian Old Kingdom. County borders were kept largely intact, with only a couple minor adjustments. As a result of the 1925 administrative unification law, the territory was divided into 71 counties, 489 districts (plăși) and 8,879communes.
Some of the 71județe still exist today, a number were lost during World War II, and some became defunct. The latter ones are:
As a part ofKing Carol II's administrative reform of August 14, 1938, 10 regions (ținuturi) were created, which each included several of the existing 71 counties. The counties were preserved as administrative units, but most of their responsibilities were transferred to the new regions. Each region was headed by a regional governor (Rezident Regal), who supervised thecounty prefects, and each region had a regional council. The regional governor was appointed directly by the King.[5]The aim of the new regions was to connect poorer and richer counties and to break up the historical regions (Bessarabia,Bukovina,Transylvania etc.). However, the old regionalisms continued under the new brand (e.g.Transylvanian regionalism inȚinutul Mureș andBukovinian regionalism inȚinutul Suceava).The new regions were short-lived: all regions butȚinutul Olt andȚinutul Timiș had lost territory in September 1940, following the cession ofBessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR, theSecond Vienna Award and theTreaty of Craiova. After the fall of Carol II's personal regime (the so-called royal dictatorship) on September 6, 1940, the ȚinuturiTimiș,Mureș,Mării,Dunărea de Jos,Prut andSuceava were restructured on September 16, 1940.[6] All the regions were abolished only a couple of days later, on September 22, 1940.[7][8]
According to the Official Journal of August 14, 1938, the 10 regions and their capitals were the following:
| Region | Capital |
|---|---|
| Ținutul Olt (draft version: Ținutul Jiu) | Craiova |
| Ținutul Bucegi (draft version: Ținutul Argeș) | Bucharest |
| Ținutul Mării | Constanța |
| Ținutul Dunărea de Jos (draft version: Ținutul Dunării) | Galați |
| Ținutul Nistru | Chișinău |
| Ținutul Prut | Iași |
| Ținutul Suceava | Cernăuți |
| Ținutul Mureș | Alba-Iulia |
| Ținutul Someș (draft version: Ținutul Crișuri) | Cluj |
| Ținutul Timiș | Timișoara |
Several regions had been given other names in the draft version of the Law (mentioned between brackets). All regions were named after rivers, except Ținutul Mării, i.e. the(Black) Sea Region, and Ținutul Bucegi, called after theBucegi Mountains.[9]
After the recovery of Bessarabia, theBessarabia Governorate with capital at Chișinău was established in 1941 and existed until 1944. It included the counties of Bălți, Cetatea Albă, Cahul,Chilia (newly established), Ismail, Lăpușna, Orhei, Soroca and Tighina.
Following the recapture of Northern Bukovina, theBukovina Governorate with capital atCernăuți (Chernivtsi) existed from 1941 to 1944. It included the counties of Câmpulung, Cernăuți, Dorohoi, Hotin, Rădăuți, Storojineț and Suceava.
This territory was administered by Romania briefly in 1941–1944, when the country was governed by a military dictatorship allied withNazi Germany. It consisted of formerly proper Soviet territory betweenDniester andSouthern Bug rivers. Nowadays, most of it is inUkraine, with small parts in theRepublic of Moldova (Transnistria). This territory was kept under Romanian military occupation, and was not annexed by Romania. It was divided into 13 counties:
In 1913, as a result of theSecond Balkan War, Romania acquiredSouthern Dobruja fromBulgaria, annexing this historical region within Romania's borders. In 1940, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy forced Romania to return it to Bulgaria (seeTreaty of Craiova). Romania did not reclaim this area neither after the end of World War II nor at the fall of communism.
In 1940, Soviet UnionoccupiedBessarabia, northernBukovina, and theHertsa region (the latter part ofDorohoi County in a rump Moldavia). Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, these territories have been part of the newly independentMoldova andUkraine.
in Moldova
| in Ukraine
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In 1951, theRomanian Workers' Party changed the administrative division of Romania to theSoviet model (regions andraions), but reverted to the county system in 1968, although county borders were quite different from the interwar period. A small adjustment was performed in 1981: former counties of Ilfov and Ialomița were reorganized into the present-day counties of Giurgiu, Călărași, Ialomița and Ilfov.
A new law on the administrative division from September 6, 1950, abolished the 58 remaining counties (as well as the 424plăși and the 6,276 urban and rural communes), replacing them with 28 regions composed of 177 raions, 148 cities and 4,052 communes.[10] In 1952 the number of regions was reduced to 18:Arad,Bacău,Baia Mare,Bârlad,București,Cluj,Constanța,Craiova, Galați, Hunedoara, Iași, Oradea, Pitești, Ploiești, Stalin, Suceava, Timișoara, and for the first time and autonomous administrative unit based on ethnic criteria,Magyar Autonomous Region (Regiunea Autonomă Maghiară).[11] In 1956 the regions of Arad and Bârlad were also dismantled.[12] In 1960, the Hungarian autonomous unit was renamed toRegiunea Mureș-Autonomă Maghiară (Mureș-Hungarian Autonomous Region) along with changes in its territory. The final number of regions was 16.
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In February 1968, the old administrative division ofjudeț was reinstated. On January 14, 1968, the law proposal included 35 counties. The final result was substantially different from the situation existent before 1950. This included 39 counties, municipality of Bucharest, 236 cities, out of which 47 were municipalities, and 2706 communes comprising 13149 villages.[13] There were several reasons for restoring thejudețe. For one, theNicolae Ceaușescu regime wished to distance itself from the Soviet Union, and discarding the Soviet administrative model was a means of achieving that. For another, the regime had anationalist outlook, and bringing back an old Romanian system fit with the prevailing ideology. Finally, during his first years, Ceaușescu was preoccupied with replacing functionaries named by his predecessorGheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and creating his own power base; dismissing the regional administrations and naming his own county officials was a step in that process.[14]
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In 1981 theIlfov County was divided into a so-called "Agricultural Sector" of Ilfov (Sectorul Agricol Ilfov) and the newly createdGiurgiu County, andCălărași County was created by detaching the southern part of theIalomița County. The county borders introduced in 1968 are largely in place at present, but administrative reforms during the 1990s have devolved the functions of different authorities in line with transition from a totalitarian communist system to a modern democracy. The only territorial adjustment after 1989 occurred in 1995, whenIlfov County was formed out of the so-called "agricultural sector" of the Municipality of Bucharest (Sectorul Agricol Ilfov). With Romania's integration into the European structures, its counties becameNUTS level 3 divisions of theEuropean Union. Currently,Romania is divided into 41 counties and the Municipality of Bucharest.
As of 2010–2011 there have been several proposals for the administrative reorganization ofRomania made by the presidential commission tasked with the analysis of the current political and constitutional system.[15] Most of these recommendations aim for the partial reestablishment of the counties in their pre-1950 form (NUTS III level). If this reform were adopted, the counties would be grouped into several regions (9 to 15) based on common historical and economic characteristics (NUTS II level). The regions will be in their turn clustered into 4–6 macroregions (NUTS I level). Furthermore, aNUTS IV level division, calledplasă orcanton, would probably be added in order to meet theEU statistical and administrative requirements.[16]
Another proposal, based on 15 autonomous euro-regions (amongst them one ethnic-based region with a consistent Hungarian majority consisting of the existingMureș,Harghita andCovasna counties) grouped into 5 statistical macroregions (NUTS I), was made by theDemocratic Union of Hungarians in Romania.[17]
In 2018, aname referendum was held in theOlt County to rename it to "Olt-Romanați County" in memory of the former Romanați County,[18][19] but it did not reach the required turnout and therefore failed.[20][21]
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