Counties of Romania

Counties Of Romania

A total of 41 judeţe and the municipality of Bucharest comprise the official administrative divisions of Romania. Judeţ translates into English as jurisdiction, but is commonly translated loosely as county (which is actually "comitat" in Romanian from "comte" meaning "count"). They represent the country's NUTS-3 (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics – Level 3) statistical subdivisions within the European Union and each of them serves as the local level of government within its borders. Most counties are named after a major river, while some are named after notable cities within them, such as the county seat.

The earliest organization into judeţe of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (where they were termed ţinuturi) dates back to at least the late 14th century. For most of the time since modern Romania was formed in 1859, the administrative division system has been similar to the French departments one. The system was changed several times since then, and the number of counties varied over time, from the 71 judeţe that existed before World War II to only 39 after 1968. The current format has largely been in place since 1968 as only small changes have been made since then, the last of which was in 1997.

According to 2011 census data from the Romanian National Institute of Statistics, the average population of Romania's 41 counties is about 423,500, with Prahova County as the most populous (736,000) and Tulcea County (201,000) the least. The average county's land area is 5,809 square kilometres (2,243 sq mi), with Timiş County (8,697 square kilometres (3,358 sq mi)) the largest and Ilfov County (1,583 square kilometres (611 sq mi)) the smallest. The Municipality of Bucharest is both more populous and much smaller than any county, with 1,931,200 people and 228 square kilometres (88 sq mi).