Romania's administration is relatively centralised and administrative subdivisions are therefore fairly simplified. According to the Constitution of Romania, its territory is organized administratively into communes, towns and counties:[1] - At the county level: 41 counties, and one municipality with a special status (Bucharest, the national capital)
- At the city/commune level: 211 cities and 103 municipalities (for urban areas), and 2827 communes (for rural areas).[2] Municipality status is given to larger cities; the administrations of municipalities have more local authonomy than cities.
Beyond the communal and city or municipal level, there are no further formal administrative subdivisions. However, communes are divided into villages (villages have no administration of their own). There are 13,092 villages in Romania. The only exception if Bucharest, which has 6 sectors, each with an administration of its own. [edit] Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) For statistical and development purposes, Romania, in the NUTS scheme, is divided into: - NUTS I level: 4 macroregions (macroregiune in Romanian), used for appropriation of European development funds
- NUTS II level: 8 development regions, with an average population of 2.8 million inhabitants per region, although not administrative divisions per se, have been used for decades for statistical purposes by the Romanian National Commission of Statistics (NCS). Recently they also exist to co-ordinate regional development and appropriation of European development funds
- NUTS III level: 41 counties and one municipality (Bucharest, the national capital) reflecting Romania's official administrative-territorial structure
- LAU I level: not used, as territorial units associations have not been identified yet;
- LAU II level: 211 cities and 103 municipalities (for urban areas), and 2,827 communes (for rural areas), according to some sources,[2] or 265 cities and towns and 2,686 communes with 13,092 villages, according to others.
An exception to this structure is the Municipality of Bucharest, which is a secondary division (rather than a tertiary division like other municipalities) and is officially divided into six sectors, each sector having a local government and counsil. The eight development regions (specific territorial entities without administrative status or legal personality) represent the framework for collecting specific statistical data, according to the European regulations issued by Eurostat for the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) II territorial level. According to the Emergency Government Ordinance No 75/2001 on the functioning of the National Institute for Statistics, eight Directorates General for regional statistics have been created, and together with the 34 county directorates for statistics, aim at developing regional statistics. Officially, the eight regions are North-East, South-East, South, South-West, West, North-West, Center, and Bucharest. The criteria used by NCS for delimiting the regions is a combination of geographical location and homogeneity based on population density. Alternative historical names are also used, but remain unofficial. | no | type | name | area, km2 | population (mid-2007 official estimate) | municipalities | other cities | communes | villages | | 1 | North-East development region | 36,850 | | 17 | 29 | 505 | 2,414 | | 1 | county | Bacău County | 6,621 | 719,844 | 3 | 5 | 85 | 491 | | 2 | county | Botoşani County | 4,986 | 454,167 | 2 | 5 | 71 | 333 | | 3 | county | Iaşi County | 5,476 | 825,100 | 2 | 3 | 93 | 418 | | 4 | county | Neamţ County | 5,896 | 566,059 | 2 | 3 | 78 | 344 | | 5 | county | Suceava County | 8,553 | 705,878 | 5 | 11 | 97 | 379 | | 6 | county | Vaslui County | 5,318 | 455,594 | 3 | 2 | 81 | 449 | | 2 | South-East development region | 35,762 | | 11 | 24 | 354 | 1,447 | | 7 | county | Brăila County | 4,766 | 365,628 | 1 | 3 | 40 | 140 | | 8 | county | Buzău County | 6,103 | 488,763 | 2 | 3 | 82 | 475 | | 9 | county | Constanţa County | 7,071 | 718,330 | 3 | 9 | 58 | 188 | | 10 | county | Galaţi County | 4,466 | 614,449 | 2 | 2 | 60 | 180 | | 11 | county | Tulcea County | 8,499 | 250,641 | 1 | 4 | 46 | 133 | | 12 | county | Vrancea County | 4,857 | 392,619 | 2 | 3 | 68 | 331 | | 3 | South development region | 34,453 | | 16 | 32 | 519 | 2,019 | | 13 | county | Argeş County | 6,826 | 644,236 | 3 | 4 | 95 | 576 | | 14 | county | Călăraşi County | 5,088 | 315,187 | 2 | 3 | 50 | 160 | | 15 | county | Dâmboviţa County | 4,054 | 533,330 | 2 | 5 | 82 | 353 | | 16 | county | Giurgiu County | 3,526 | 283,408 | 1 | 2 | 51 | 167 | | 17 | county | Ialomiţa County | 4,453 | 290,563 | 3 | 4 | 59 | 127 | | 18 | county | Prahova County | 4,716 | 821,013 | 2 | 12 | 90 | 405 | | 19 | county | Teleorman County | 5,790 | 413,064 | 3 | 2 | 92 | 231 | | 4 | South-West development region | 29, 212 | | 11 | 29 | 408 | 2,066 | | 20 | county | Dolj County | 7,414 | 712,187 | 3 | 4 | 104 | 378 | | 21 | county | Gorj County | 5,602 | 381,643 | 2 | 7 | 61 | 411 | | 22 | county | Mehedinţi County | 4,933 | 298,741 | 2 | 3 | 61 | 344 | | 23 | county | Olt County | 5,498 | 475,702 | 2 | 6 | 104 | 377 | | 24 | county | Vâlcea County | 5,765 | 411,576 | 2 | 9 | 78 | 556 | | 5 | West development region | 32,034 | | 12 | 30 | 278 | 1,327 | | 25 | county | Arad County | 7,754 | 457,713 | 1 | 9 | 68 | 270 | | 26 | county | Caraş-Severin County | 8,520 | 327,579 | 2 | 6 | 69 | 287 | | 27 | county | Hunedoara County | 7,063 | 472,284 | 7 | 7 | 55 | 457 | | 28 | county | Timiş County | 8,697 | 666,866 | 2 | 8 | 86 | 313 | | 6 | North-West development region | 34,159 | | 15 | 28 | 401 | 1,799 | | 29 | county | Bihor County | 7,544 | 594,131 | 4 | 6 | 90 | 429 | | 30 | county | Bistriţa-Năsăud County | 5,355 | 316,689 | 1 | 3 | 58 | 235 | | 31 | county | Cluj County | 6,674 | 692,316 | 5 | 1 | 75 | 420 | | 32 | county | Maramureş County | 6,304 | 513,000 | 2 | 11 | 63 | 214 | | 33 | county | Satu Mare County | 4,418 | 366,270 | 2 | 4 | 58 | 220 | | 34 | county | Sălaj County | 3,864 | 243,157 | 1 | 3 | 57 | 281 | | 7 | Center development region | 34,100 | | 20 | 37 | 357 | 1,788 | | 35 | county | Alba County | 6,242 | 376,086 | 4 | 7 | 67 | 656 | | 36 | county | Braşov County | 5,363 | 593,928 | 4 | 6 | 48 | 149 | | 37 | county | Covasna County | 3,710 | 223,364 | 2 | 3 | 40 | 122 | | 38 | county | Harghita County | 6,639 | 325,611 | 4 | 5 | 58 | 235 | | 39 | county | Mureş County | 6,714 | 581,759 | 4 | 7 | 91 | 464 | | 40 | county | Sibiu County | 5,432 | 423,156 | 2 | 9 | 53 | 162 | | 8 | Bucharest-Ilfov development region | 1,821 | | 1 | 8 | 32 | 91 | | 41 | county | Ilfov County | 1,583 | 294,094 | - | 8 | 32 | 91 | | 42 | municipality | Bucharest | 238 | 1,931,838 | 1 | - | - | - | | Total | 238,391 | N/A | 103 | 217 | 2,854 | 12,951 | [edit] References - Law 151/1998 regarding the regional development in Romania was published in “Monitorul Oficial” on July 16, 1998, being approved by the Romanian Parliament. MIE Chapter 21
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