Western Moldavia

Moldavia (Romanian: Moldova), also called Romanian Moldavia, is the core historic and geographical part of the former Principality of Moldavia situated in eastern and north-eastern Romania. Until its union with Wallachia in 1859, the Principality of Moldavia also included, at various times in its history, the regions of Bessarabia (with the Budjak), all of Bukovina, and Hertsa; the larger part of the former is nowadays the independent state of Moldova, while the rest of it, the northern part of Bukovina, and Hertsa form territories of Ukraine.

This article is about the region of Romania. For other uses, see Moldova (disambiguation).
Moldavia
Moldova (Romanian)
Historical region of Romania
Map of Romania with region Moldavia in yellow
Map of Romania with region Moldavia in yellow
CountryRomania
Area
 • Total46,173 km2 (17,827 sq mi)
Population
 (2021 census)
 • Total4,065,189
 • Density88/km2 (230/sq mi)
DemonymMoldavian
98% Romanians 2% Others
Time zoneUTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)

Romanian Moldavia consists of eight counties, spanning over 18% of Romania's territory. Six out of the 8 counties make up Romania's designated Nord-Est development region, while the two southern counties are included within Romania's Sud-Est development region. It comprises roughly 48.67% of the wider region of Moldavia.

History
Main article: Moldavia § History

Moldavian dialect
Main article: Moldavian dialect

The delimitation of the Moldavian dialect, as with all other Romanian dialects, is made primarily by analyzing its phonetic features and only marginally by morphological, syntactical, and lexical characteristics.

The Moldavian dialect is the representative of the northern grouping of Romanian dialects and has influenced the Romanian spoken over large areas of Transylvania.

The Moldavian and the Wallachian dialects are the only two that have been consistently identified and recognized by linguists. They are clearly distinct in dialect classifications made by Heimann Tiktin, Mozes Gaster, Gustav Weigand, Sextil Pușcariu, Sever Pop, Emil Petrovici, Romulus Todoran, Ion Coteanu, Alexandru Philippide, Iorgu Iordan, Emanuel Vasiliu, and others, whereas the other dialects have been considerably more controversial and difficult to classify.

The Moldavian dialect is not synonymous with Moldovan language. The latter is another term for the Romanian language as used in the Republic of Moldova. The border between Romania and the Republic of Moldova does not correspond to any significant isoglosses to justify a dialectal division; phonetics and morphology (which define dialectal classifications) are identical across the border, whereas lexical differences are minimal.[1]

It is worth mentioning however that while on the Romanian side the vocabulary was updated with words attributed by the arrival of modern technologies of the late 20th century and merged with Wallachian and Transilvanian dialects, on the Moldavian side the language remained somehow archaic, preserving more regionalisms, becoming a "time capsule" of the way how people spoke before the annexation of the region by the Soviet Union in 1940 through the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact.

Administrative divisions
Historical regions of Greater Romania; (Western) Moldavia in blue.

The area of the region is 46,173 km2 (17,827 sq mi) and covers 8 counties (Romanian: județ), in eastern and northeastern Romania: Bacău, Botoșani, Galați, Iași, Neamț, Suceava, Vaslui, and Vrancea.

Suceava County is also referred to as (the southern) part of Bukovina.

The part of Moldavia where the Csángós lived was called Csángó Land.

Population

According to Romanian Census (2011) data,[2] the region has a total population of 4,178,694 inhabitants (20.7% of Romania's population), distributed among the ethnic groups as follows:

The most populous cities as of 2011 census (metropolitan areas, as of 2014[3]):

  • Iași
    Iași
  • Galați
    Galați
  • Bacău
    Bacău
  • Botoșani
    Botoșani
  • Suceava
    Suceava
  • Piatra Neamț
    Piatra Neamț
  • Focșani
    Focșani
  • Bârlad
    Bârlad
  • Vaslui
    Vaslui
  • Roman
    Roman
  • Miclăușeni
    Miclăușeni
  • Comănești
    Comănești

See also

References
  1. Vasile Pavel, Limba română – unitate în diversitate, Limba română, nr. 9–10, 2008 (in Romanian)
  2. "Population at 20 October 2011" (in Romanian). INSSE. Archived from the original on 29 September 2013. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  3. "Population on 1 January by age groups and sex – functional urban areas". Eurostat. Retrieved 15 August 2017.

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