Historical Administrative Divisions of Romania - Communist Romania

Communist Romania

See also: Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of Romania

In 1951, the Communist Party changed the administrative division of Romania to the Soviet model (regions and raions), but reverted back 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 Ialomiţa were reorganized into the present-day counties of Giurgiu, Călăraşi, Ialomiţa and Ilfov.

A new law on the administrative division from September 6, 1950, abolished the 58 remaining counties (as well as the 424 plăşi and the 6,276 urban and rural communes), replacing them with 28 regions composed of 177 raions, 148 cities and 4,052 communes. In 1952 the number of regions was reduced to 18: Arad, Bacău, Baia Mare, Bârlad, Bucureşti, Cluj, Constanţa, Craiova, Galaţi, Hunedoara, Iaşi, Oradea, Piteşti, Ploieşti, Stalin, Suceava, Timişoara, and for the first time and autonomous administrative unit based on ethnic criteria, Magyar Autonomous Region (Regiunea Autonomă Maghiară). In 1956 the regions of Arad and Bârlad were also dismanteled. In 1960, the Hungarian autonomous unit was renamed to Regiunea Mureş-Autonomă Maghiară (Mureş-Hungarian Autonomous Region) along with changes in its territory. The final number of regions was 16.

In February 1968, the old administrative division of judeţ 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.