Historical Administrative Divisions of Romania - Overview

Overview

The earliest organization into judeţe of the Principalities of Wallachia, respectively ţinuturi of Moldavia, dates back at least to the late 14th century. Each judeţ, respectively ţinut, was ruled by a jude, respectively pârcălab, an officially appointed person who had administrative and judicial functions in a manner inspired from the organization of the late Byzantine Empire. Transylvania, when it was part of the historic Kingdom of Hungary (in the Middle Ages), an independent Principality or a Habsburg domain (in the modern era until World War I) was divided into royal counties (Latin: comitatus), headed by comes (royal counts) with administrative and judicial functions. The term judeţ started to be used in Romanian as a general term for all administrative divisions since mid 19th century.

When modern Romania was formed in 1859 through the union of Wallachia and rump Moldavia, and then extended in 1918 through the union of Transylvania, as well as Bukovina and Bessarabia (parts of Moldavia temporarily acquired by the Habsburgs, 1775–1918, respectively the Russian Tsars, 1812–1917), the administrative division was modernized using the French departments system as model. With the exception of the Communist period, this system remained in place. A prefect (from the Latin praefectus) is appointed for each judeţ. 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, each judeţ was divided into a number of plăşi (singular plasă), each administered by a pretor (from the Latin praetor), appointed by the prefect. Currently, Romania has no NUTS-4 units, the counties being composed directly of cities (with or without municipality status) and communes.

As in all modern democracies, the political power in Romania is divided into three independent branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The prefect 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 judeţean) 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 8 development regions of the NUTS-2 level.)