The Bucharest Metropolitan Area (Romanian: Zona Metropolitana București) is a proposed metropolitan area project that includes Bucharest and surrounding communes. If completed, it would have a population of about 2.2 million, only slightly larger than that of the city proper (1.7 million). It would also be a member of the METREX network.
The "Metropolitan Area" project has been initiated in 2003. A survey in 2008 showed that about 70% of the population of the area favors the project. The city proper has now 228 km2, but the metropolitan zone would reach 1,800 km2 in a first phase.
There are several plans to further increase the "Metropolitan Area of Bucharest" to about 20 times the area of the city proper (from 228 km² to 5,046 km²). A possible name for it will probably be "Greater Bucharest". It would include 6 cities and 87 communes from the Ilfov, Giurgiu and Călăraşi counties, and would extend all the way towards the border with Bulgaria in the south, and towards the Prahova County in the north. In an initial stage, the extension of the zone would include only 62 out of the proposed 93 candidate localities. In spite of this expansion, the ethnografic area of Vlaşca will be protected. The "Bucharest Metropolitan Area" may become the biggest port on the Danube upon completion of the Danube-Bucharest Canal.
The enlarged "Metropolitan Area" Council will have 105 councilors, twice as many are now, and the Government will appoint a governor, a position which would be homologized to the prefect of Bucharest.
Read more about Bucharest Metropolitan Area: Subdivisions
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—Viorica Butnariu, Rumanian student at Bucharest University. letter, Dec. 23, 1989, to American friend. Observer (London, Dec. 31, 1989)
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