Romania is composed mainly of Eastern Orthodox, Protestants and Catholics, with the Romania’s making up about 90%, Hungarians come in at 5% and the Romas (gypsies) make up only a fraction, about 4 1/2%.
Romania is legendary for being the home of one of the bloodiest rulers in history, Vlad Tepes, Prince of Wallachia, a.k.a "Vlad the Impaler". His gruesome reign lasted from the mid 1400's to the late 1400's. The locals referred to him as "Dracula", this sprung Bram Stokers infamous novel "Dracula". Romania has been a country of infamy ever since. Independence from the Ottoman Empire was declared on May 9, 1877. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina, and Bessarabia were united with the Kingdom of Romania. By the end of World War II northeastern areas of Romania were then occupied by the Soviet Union where they were then forced to become a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact.
In the 1989 revolution and the fall of the Iron Curtain, Romania started their slow, but rewarding, path to democracy and a capitalist market economy. On March 29, 2004 they joined NATO; and then joined the European Union in January of 2007.Romania also holds membership with the Latin Union, Francophonie, OSCE, WTO, BSEC and the United Nations.
Romania is now a unitary semi-presidential republic; the current president is Traian Basescu.
Romania's Economy thrives in the production and export of textiles, footwear, light machinery, mining of minerals and fuels, timber. The agricultural side of the economy consists of sugar beets, wheat, barley, eggs and corn. Tourism is an extremely dynamic and rapid growing part of Romania's economy and remains the 2nd largest component of the services industry.
