General information
Romanian flag
Bucharest (Romanian: București names in other languages) is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country.According to preliminary data from 2011 census, 1,677,985 inhabitants live within the city limits, a decrease from the figure recorded at the 2002 census. The urban area extends beyond the limits of Bucharest proper and has a population of 1.93 million people. Adding the satellite towns around the urban area, the proposed metropolitan area of Bucharest would have a population of 2.2 million people. According to Eurostat, Bucharest has a Larger Urban Zone of 2,151,880 residents. According to unofficial data, the population is more than 3 million. Bucharest is the 10th largest city in the European Union by population within city limits. Bucharest is the primary entry point into Romania.
Bucharest
Map of Bucharest
Bucharest is a booming city with many large infrastructure projects changing the old face of the city. Known in the past as "The Little Paris," Bucharest has changed a lot lately, and today it has become a very interesting mix of old and new that has little to do with its initial reputation. Finding a 300 year old church near a steel-and-glass building that both sit next to a communist style building is commonplace in Bucharest. Bucharest offers some excellent attractions, and has, in recent years, cultivated a sophisticated, trendy, and modern sensibility that many have come to expect from a European capital. Bucharest has been undergoing major modernization programs in recent years and is still going to continue with these projects in the years to come. Those who knew Bucharest in the past but have not visited it after 2010 will be surprised by the scale of the changes that are taking place. The center of the city is being completely revamped, and there is a major project in every part of the city. Bucharest has benefited from an economic boom along with the EU grants that have helped rebuild parts of the city. Ambitious projects are quite common in Bucharest. The largest project finished at this time is the impressive Basarab bridge, which is Europe's widest cable-stayed bridge.
A Romance Language
Origins of the Romanian language
The official language is Romanian, a Romance language which claims to be the closest currently-spoken relative to Ancient Latin, but contains around 20% of loan words from Slavonic languages. Most younger educated people will speak English reasonably well and will likely be proficient in one or more second Romance languages; most educated people born before about 1970 will speak French, Spanish or Italian reasonably well. The Roma people speak their native Romany, as well as Romanian, and sometimes English as well. Beyond that, as in any major city, there will be a smattering of other languages like Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, Hungarian.