Cluj-Napoca.html



Coordinates: 46°46′N 23°35′E / 46.767, 23.583

Cluj-Napoca
Coat of arms
Nickname(s): Treasure City (Romanian: oraşul comoară);1 (Hungarian: kincses város)2
Location of Cluj-Napoca
Coordinates: 46°46′N 23°35′E / 46.767, 23.583
Country	Romania
County	Cluj
Metropolitan area	Cluj-Napoca metropolitan area
Status	County capital
Founded	1213 (first official record as Clus)
Government
- Mayor	Emil Boc (PD-L)
- Deputy Mayor	Sorin Apostu (PD-L)
- Deputy Mayor	László Attila (UDMR)
Area
- City	179.5 km² (69.3 sq mi)
- Metro	782.7 km² (302.2 sq mi)
Population (July 1, 20073)
- City	310,243
- Density	1,771/km² (4,586.9/sq mi)
- Metro	352,646
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
- Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Postal Code	400xyz1
Area code(s)	+40 x642
Twin Cities
- Cologne	Germany
- Athens	Greece
- Dijon  - Nantes	France  France
- Cervia	Italy
- São Paulo	Brazil
- Columbia  - East Lansing  - Rockford	United States  United States  United States
- Zagreb  - Pécs  - Korçë  - Makati  - Caracas  - Chacao Municipality  - Suwon  - Zhengzhou  - Beersheba	Croatia  Hungary  Albania  Philippines  Venezuela  Venezuela  South Korea  People's Republic of China  Israel
Car Plates	CJ-N3
1x, y, and z are digits that indicate the street, part of the street, or even the building of the address 2x is a digit indicating the operator: 2 for the former national operator, Romtelecom, and 3 for the other ground telephone networks 3used just on the plates of vehicles that operate only within the city limits (such as trolleys, trams, utility vehicles, ATVs, etc.)
Website: http://www.primariaclujnapoca.ro

Cluj-Napoca (help·info) (pronunciation in Romanian: /'kluʒ na'poka/; German: Klausenburg; Hungarian: Kolozsvár; Latin: Napoca, Castrum Clus, Claudiopolis; Yiddish: קלויזנבורג, Kloiznburg), until 1974 Cluj, is the third largest city in Romania,⁴ and the seat of Cluj County, in north-western Transylvania. Geographically, it is roughly equally distant from Bucharest (323 km / 201 mi), Budapest (354 km / 220 mi) and Belgrade (327 km / 203 mi). The city lies in the valley of the Someşul Mic River and is the capital of the historical province of Transylvania.

As of July 2007, 310,243 inhabitants live within the city limits,⁴ a slight decrease from the figure recorded at the 2002 census.⁵ The Cluj-Napoca metropolitan area has a population of 352,646 people, while the population of the peri-urban area (Romanian: zona periurbană) exceeds 400,000 residents.⁶ The new metropolitan government of Cluj-Napoca should be functional as early as June 2008.⁷ Lastly, according to the 2007 data provided by the County Population Register Service, the total population of the city is as high as 392,276 people.⁸ However, this number does not include the floating population of students and other non-residents—an average of over 20 thousand people each year during 2004-2007, according to the same source.⁸

The city spreads out from St. Michael's Church in Unirii Square, built in the 14th century and named after the Archangel Michael, the patron saint of Cluj-Napoca.⁹ The boundaries of the municipality contain an area of 179.52 square kilometres (69.31 sq mi). An analysis undertaken by the real estate agency Profesional Casa indicates that, because of infrastructure development, communes such as Feleacu, Vâlcele, Mărtineşti, Jucu and Baciu will eventually become neighbourhoods of the city, thereby enlarging its area.¹⁰

Cluj-Napoca experienced a decade of decline during the 1990s, its international reputation suffering from the policies of its mayor of the time, Gheorghe Funar.¹¹ His acts of ethnic provocation against the Hungarian-speaking minority did much to deter investors; however, the situation changed dramatically after his ouster, with the city entering a period of rapid growth in terms of economics and demographics—the city's population is projected, according to Sorin Apostu, a manager at City Hall, to more than double by the late 2010s.¹¹ Today, the city is one of the most important academic, cultural, industrial and business centres in Romania. Among other institutions, it hosts the largest university in the country, Babeş-Bolyai University, with its famous botanical garden; nationally renowned cultural institutions; as well as the largest Romanian-owned commercial bank. Monocle magazine identified Cluj-Napoca as one of the top five places worldwide that are due their turn in the international spotlight during 2008.¹²¹³ According to the American magazine InformationWeek, Cluj-Napoca is quickly becoming Romania's technopolis.¹⁴

Etymology

Romanian inscription of a religious book: "Tiperit en Klus en Anul Domnului 1703" (Printed in Klus AD 1703).

The first written mention of its name – as a Royal Borough – was in 1213 under the Latin name Castrum Clus.¹⁵ However, despite the fact that Clus as a county name was recorded earlier, in the 1173 document Thomas comes Clusiensis,¹⁶ it is believed that the county's designation derives from the name of the castrum—which might have existed prior to its first mention in 1213—and not vice versa.¹⁶ With respect to the name of this camp, it is widely accepted as a derivation from the Latin term clausa – clusa, meaning "closed place", "strait", "ravine".¹⁶ Similar senses are attributed to the Slavic term kluč¹⁶ and the German Klause – Kluse (meaning mountain pass or weir).¹⁷ An alternative hypothesis relates the name of the city to its first magistrate, Miklus – Miklós / Kolos.¹⁷

The Hungarian form, first recorded in 1246 as Kulusuar, underwent various phonetic changes over the years (uar/vár means "castle" in Hungarian); the variant Koloswar first appears in a document from 1332.¹⁸ Its Saxon name Clusenburg/Clusenbvrg appeared in 1348, but from 1408 the form Clausenburg was used.¹⁸ The Romanian name of the city used to be spelled alternately as Cluj or Cluş¹⁹ – the latter being the case in Mihai Eminescu's Poesis. However, the city's name was finally changed to Cluj-Napoca²⁰ in 1974 by the Romanian Communist authorities.²¹ Possible etymologies for Napoca or Napuca include the name of some Dacian tribes like the Naparis or Napaei, the Greek term napos (νάπος), meaning "timbered valley" or the Indo-European root *snā-p- (Pokorny 971-2), "to flow, to swim, damp".²² Independent of these hypotheses, scholars agree that the name of the settlement predates the Roman conquest (AD 106).²²

In Yiddish it is known as קלאזין (Klazin) or קלויזענבורג (Kloyznburg).¹⁹

History

Main article: History of Cluj-Napoca

„Clavdiopolis, Coloswar vulgo Clavsenbvrg, Transiluaniæ ciuitas primaria“. Gravure^[a] of medieval Cluj by Georg Houfnagel (1617)

The Roman Empire conquered Dacia in AD 101 and 106, during the rule of Trajan, and the Roman settlement Napoca, established thereafter, is first recorded on a milestone discovered in 1758 in the vicinity of the city.²³ Trajan's successor Hadrian granted Napoca the status of municipium as municipium Aelium Hadrianum Napocenses. Later, in the 2nd century AD,²⁴ the city gained the status of a colonia as Colonia Aurelia Napoca. Napoca became a provincial capital of Dacia Porolissensis and thus the seat of a procurator. The colonia was evacuated in 274 by the Romans.²³ There are no references to urban settlement on the site for the better part of a millennium thereafter.²⁵

At the beginning of the Middle Ages, two groups of buildings existed on the current site of the city: the wooden fortress at Cluj-Mănăştur (Kolozsmonostor) and the civilian settlement developed around the current Piaţa Muzeului (Museum Place) in the city centre.¹⁶²⁶ Although the precise date of the conquest of Transylvania by the Magyars is not known, the earliest Magyar artefacts found in the region are dated to the first half of the 10th century.²⁷ In any case, after that time, the city became part of the Kingdom of Hungary. King Stephen I made the city the seat of the castle county of Kolozs, and King Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary founded the abbey of Cluj-Mănăştur (Kolozsmonostor), destroyed during the Tatar invasions in 1241 and 1285.¹⁶ As for the civilian colony, a castle and a village were built to the northwest of the ancient Napoca at the earliest in the late 12th century.¹⁶ This new village was settled by large groups of Transylvanian Saxons, encouraged during the reign of Crown Prince Stephen, Duke of Transylvania.¹⁵ The settlement's first reliable mention dates to 1275, in a document of King Ladislaus IV of Hungary, when the village (Villa Kulusvar) was granted to the Bishop of Transylvania.²⁸ On August 19, 1316, during the rule of the new king, Charles I of Hungary, Cluj was granted the status of a city (Latin civitas), as a reward for the Saxons' contribution to the defeat of the rebellious Transylvanian voivode, Ladislaus Kán.²⁸

The Palace of Justice

Many craft guilds were established in the second half of the 13th century, and a patrician stratum based in commerce and craft production displaced the older landed elite in the town's leadership.²⁹ Through the privilege granted by Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1405, the city opted out from the jurisdiction of voivodes, vice-voivodes and royal judges, and obtained the right to elect a twelve-member jury every year.³⁰ In 1488, King Matthias Corvinus (born in Klausenburg in 1440) ordered that the centumvirate—the city council, consisting of one hundred men—be half composed from the homines bone conditiones (the wealthy people), with craftsmen supplying the other half; together they would elect the chief judge and the jury.³⁰ Meanwhile, an agreement was reached providing that half of the representatives on this city council were to be drawn from the Hungarian, half from the Saxon population, and that judicial offices were to be held on a rotating basis.³¹ In 1541, Klausenburg became part of the independent Principality of Transylvania after the Ottoman Turks occupied the central part of the Kingdom of Hungary; a period of economic and cultural flourishing followed.³¹ Although Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár) served as a political capital for the princes of Transylvania, Klausenburg enjoyed the support of the princes to a greater extent, thus establishing connections with the most important centers of Eastern Europe at that time, like Košice (Kassa), Kraków, Prague and Vienna.³⁰

In terms of religion, reforming ideas first appeared in the middle of the 16th century. During Gáspár Heltai's service as preacher, the Lutheran trend grew in importance, as did the Swiss doctrine of Calvinism.³² By 1571, the Turda (Torda) Diet had adopted a more radical religion, Ferenc Dávid's Unitarianism, characterised by the free interpretation of the Bible and denial of the dogma of the Trinity.³² Stephen Báthory founded a Jesuit academy in Klausenburg in order to promote an anti-Reform movement; however, it did not have much success.³² For a year, in 1600–1601, Cluj became part of the personal union of Michael the Brave.³³³⁴ With the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699, Klausenburg became part of the Habsburg Monarchy.³⁵

The New York Palace

In the 17th century, Cluj suffered from great calamities, being subjected to plague and devastating fires.³² The end of this century brought the end of Turkish sovereignty, but found the city bereft of much of its wealth, municipal freedom, cultural centrality, political significance and even population.³⁶ It gradually regained its important position within Transylvania as the headquarters of the Gubernium and the Diets between 1719 and 1732, and again from 1790 until the revolution in 1848, when the Gubernium moved to Hermannstadt.³⁷ In 1791, a group of Romanian intellectuals drew up a petition, known as Supplex Libellus Valachorum, which was sent to the Emperor in Vienna. The petition demanded the equality of the Romanian nation in Transylvania in respect to the other nations governed by the Unio Trium Nationum, but it was rejected by the Cluj Diet.³²

Beginning in 1830, the city became the centre of the Hungarian national movement within the principality.³⁸ This erupted with the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, where at one point the Austrians were gaining control of Transylvania, trapping the Hungarians between two flanks. However, the Hungarian army, headed by the Polish general Józef Bem, launched an offensive in Transylvania, recapturing Klausenburg by Christmas 1848.³⁹ After the 1848 an absolute regime was established, followed by a liberal regime that came to power in 1860. It was in this period when equal rights were granted to the Romanians, but only briefly, as in 1865, the Diet in Cluj abolished the laws voted in Sibiu, and proclaimed the 1848 Law concerning the Union of Transylvania with Hungary.⁴⁰ Before 1918, the city's only Romanian-language schools were two church-run elementary schools, and the first printed Romanian periodical appeared in 1903.³⁶

After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Klausenburg and all of Transylvania were again integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary. During this time, Kolozsvár was among the largest and most important cities of the kingdom, and was the seat of Kolozs County. However, the situation of ethnic Romanians in Transylvania was poor, due to the oppression and persecution they underwent.⁴¹ This found expression in the Transylvanian Memorandum, a petition sent in 1892 by the political leaders of Transylvania's Romanians to the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. It asked for equal rights with the Hungarians and demanded an end to persecutions and Magyarisation attempts.⁴¹ The Emperor forwarded the memorandum to Budapest, and its authors, among them Ioan Raţiu and Iuliu Coroianu, were tried and sentenced to long prison terms for "high treason" in Kolozsvár/Cluj in May 1894.⁴² During the trial, approximately 20,000 people who had come to Cluj demonstrated on the streets of the city in support of the defendants.⁴²

Cluj-Napoca Reformed Synagogue

On September 26, 1895, Emperor Franz Joseph visited nearby Bánffy-Hunyad following the end of the Hungarian Army manoeuvres in Transylvania and was given an enthusiastic welcome by the townspeople, who built an arch decorated with the region's flowers and plants for the occasion.⁴³ In 1897, the Hungarian government decided that only Hungarian place names should be used and therefore prohibited the use of the German or Romanian versions of the city's name on official government documents.⁴⁴

In the autumn of 1918, as World War I drew to a close, Cluj became a centre of revolutionary activity, headed by Amos Frâncu who, on October 28, 1918, made an appeal for the organisation of the "union of all Romanians".⁴⁵ Thirty-nine delegates were elected from Cluj to attend the proclamation of the union with the Kingdom of Romania in Alba-Iulia on December 1, 1918,⁴⁵ later acknowledged by the Treaty of Trianon.⁴⁶ The interwar years saw the new authorities embark on a "Romanianisation" campaign: a Capitoline Wolf statue donated by Rome was set up in 1921; in 1932 a plaque written by historian Nicolae Iorga was placed on Matthias Corvinus' statue, emphasising his Romanian (paternal) ancestry; and an imposing Orthodox cathedral begun in a city where only about a tenth of inhabitants belonged to the state church.⁴⁷ However, this endeavour had mixed results: by 1939, Hungarians still dominated local economic (and to a certain extent) cultural life—for instance, Cluj had five Hungarian daily newspapers and just one in Romanian.⁴⁷ In 1940, Cluj, along with the rest of Northern Transylvania, was given back to Hungary through the Second Vienna Award imposed by the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.⁴⁸⁴⁹ After the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944 and installed a puppet government under Döme Sztójay there,⁵⁰⁵¹ large-scale antisemitic measures were taken in the city. The headquarters of the local Gestapo were located in the New York Hotel. That May, the authorities began the relocation of the Jews to the Iris ghetto.⁴⁸ Liquidation of the 16,148 captured Jews occurred through six deportations to Auschwitz in May-June 1944.⁴⁸ Despite facing severe sanctions from Miklós Horthy's Hungarian administration, some Jews escaped across the border to Romania with the assistance of intellectuals like Emil Haţieganu, Raoul Şorban, Aurel Socol and Miskolczy Dezső, and various peasants from Mănăştur.⁴⁸ On October 11, 1944 the city of Cluj was captured by Romanian and Soviet troops,⁴⁸⁵² being formally restored to the Kingdom of Romania by the Treaty of Paris in 1947. On January 24, March 6 and May 10, 1946, the Romanian students who had come back to Cluj after the restoration of northern Transylvania rose against the claims of autonomy made by nostalgic Hungarians and the new way of life imposed by the Soviets, resulting in clashes and street fights.⁵³

Palaces on the Someş River

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 produced a powerful echo within the city; there was a real possibility that demonstrations by students sympathizing with their peers across the border could escalate into an uprising.⁵⁴ The protests provided the Romanian authorities with a pretext to speed up the process of "unification" of the local Babeş (Romanian) and Bolyai (Hungarian) universities,⁵⁵ allegedly contemplated before the 1956 events.⁵⁶⁵⁷ Hungarians remained the majority of the city's population until the 1960s, when Romanians began to outnumber Hungarians,⁵⁸ due to the population influx that was a consequence of the policy of forced industrialisation of the city.⁵⁹ During the Communist period, the city recorded a high industrial development, as well as enforced construction expansion.⁵⁹ On October 16, 1974, when the city celebrated 1850 years from its first mention as Napoca, the Communist government changed the name of the city by adding "Napoca" to it.²¹

During the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Cluj-Napoca was one of the scenes of the rebellion: 26 were killed and approximately 170 injured.⁶⁰ After the end of the tolitarian rule, the nationalist politician Gheorghe Funar became mayor and governed for the next 12 years. His tenure was marked by strong Romanian nationalism and acts of ethnic provocation against the Hungarian-speaking minority. This deterred foreign investment;¹¹ however, in June 2004, Gheorghe Funar was voted out of office, with the city entering a period of rapid growth both in terms of economics and demographics—being projected to double its population by the late 2010s.¹¹ Since 2004, the mayor has been Emil Boc, president of the Democratic Liberal Party.

Geography

Central Park residence

The banks of the Someşul Mic River

The Roman garden within the local botanical garden

Cluj-Napoca, located in the central part of Transylvania, has a surface area of 179.5 square kilometres (69.3 sq mi). The city lies at the confluence of the Apuseni Mountains, the Someş plateau and the Transylvanian plain.⁶¹ It sprawls over the valleys of Someşul Mic and Nadăş, and, to some extent over the secondary valleys of the Popeşti, Chintău, Borhanci and Popii rivers.⁶²⁶³ The southern part of the city occupies the upper terrace of the northern slope of Feleac Hill, and is surrounded on three sides by hills or mountains with heights between 500 metres (1,600 ft) and 700 metres (2,300 ft).⁶³ The Someş plateau is situated to the east, while the northern part of town includes Dealurile Clujului ("the Hills of Cluj"), with the peaks, Lombului (684 m), Dealul Melcului (617 m), Techintău (633 m), Hoia (506 m) and Gârbău (570 m).⁶² Other hills are located in the western districts, and the hills of Calvaria and Cetăţuia (Belvedere) are located near the centre of city.

Built on the banks of Someşul Mic River, the city is also crossed over by brooks or streams such as Pârâul Ţiganilor, Pârâul Popeşti, Pârâul Nădăşel, Pârâul Chintenilor, Pârâul Becaş, Pârâul Murătorii; Canalul Morilor runs through the centre of town.⁶²

A wide variety of flora grow in the Cluj-Napoca Botanical Garden; some animals have also found refuge there. The city has a number of other parks, of which the largest is the Central Park. This park was founded during the 19th century and includes an artificial lake with an island, as well as the largest casino in the city, Chios. Other notable parks in the city are the Iuliu Haţieganu Park of the Babeş-Bolyai University, which features some sport facilities, the Haşdeu Park, within the eponymous student housing district, the high-elevation Cetăţuia, and the Opera Park, behind the building of the Romanian Opera.

Surroundings

The city is surrounded by forests and grasslands. Rare species of plants, such as Venus's slipper and iris, are found in the two botanical reservations of Cluj-Napoca, Fânaţele Clujului and Rezervaţia Valea Morii ("Mill Valley Reservation").⁶⁴ Animals such as boars, badgers, foxes, rabbits and squirrels live in nearby forest areas such as Făget and Hoia. The latter forest hosts the Romulus Vuia ethnographical park, with exhibits dating back to 1678.⁶⁵ Various urban myths report alien encounters in the Hoia-Baciu forest, large networks of catacombs that connect the old churches of the city, or the presence of a monster in the nearby lake of Tarniţa.⁶⁶⁶⁷

Bánffy Castle is currently being restored

A modern, 750-metre (820 yd)-long ski resort is sits on Feleac Hill, with an altitude difference of 98 metres (107 yd) between its highest and lowest points. This ski resort offers outdoor lighting, artificial snow and a ski tow.⁶⁸ Băişoara winter resort is located approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) from the city of Cluj-Napoca, and includes two ski trails, for beginner and advanced skiers, respectively: Zidul Mare and Zidul Mic.⁶⁹ Two other summer resorts/spas are included in the metropolitan area, namely Cojocna and Someşeni Baths.⁷⁰

There are a large number of castles in the countryside surroundings, constructed by wealthy medieval families living in the city. The most notable of them is the Bonţida Bánffy Castle—once known as "the Versailles of Transylvania"⁷¹—in the nearby village of Bonţida, 32 kilometres (20 mi) from the city centre. In 1963, the castle was used as a set for Liviu Ciulei's film Forest of the Hanged, which won an award at Cannes.⁷² There are other castles located in the vicinity of the city; indeed, the castle at Bonţida is not even the only one constructed by the Bánffy family. The commune of Gilău features the Wass-Bánffy Castle,⁷³ while another Bánffy Castle is located in the Răscruci area.⁷⁴ In addition, Nicula Monastery, erected during the 18th century, is an important pilgrimage site in northern Transylvania. This monastery houses the renowned wonder-working Madonna of Nicula.⁷⁵⁷⁶ The icon is said to have wept between February 15 and March 12, 1669.⁷⁷ During this time, nobles, officers, laity and clergy came to see it. At first they were sceptical, looking at it on both sides, but then humbly crossed themselves and returned home petrified by the wonder they had seen.⁷⁷ During the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos (commemorating the death of the Virgin Mary) on August 15, more than 150,000 people from all over the country come to visit the monastery.⁷⁵

Climate

Cluj-Napoca has a continental climate, characterised by hot dry summers and cold winters. The climate is influenced by the city's proximity to the Apuseni Mountains, as well as by urbanisation. Some West-Atlantic influences are present during winter and autumn. Winter temperatures are often below 0 °C (32 °F), even though they rarely drop below −10 °C (14 °F). On average, snow covers the ground for 65 days each winter.⁷⁸ In summer, the average temperature is approximately 18 °C (64 °F) (the average for July and August), despite the fact that temperatures sometimes reach 35 °C (95 °F) to 40 °C (104 °F) in mid-summer in the city centre. Although average precipitation and humidity during summer is low, there are infrequent yet heavy and often violent storms. During spring and autumn, temperatures vary between 13 °C (55 °F) to 18 °C (64 °F), and precipitation during this time tends to be higher than in summer, with more frequent yet milder periods of rain.

Weather averages for Cluj-Napoca
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °C (°F)	-1 (30)	1 (34)	8 (46)	13 (55)	18 (64)	21 (70)	23 (73)	23 (73)	20 (68)	13 (55)	5 (41)	1 (34)	12 (54)
Average low °C (°F)	-6 (21)	-5 (23)	0 (32)	4 (39)	8 (46)	11 (52)	13 (55)	12 (54)	9 (48)	4 (39)	0 (32)	-3 (27)	4 (39)
Precipitation cm (inches)	2 (0.8)	2 (0.8)	2 (0.8)	4 (1.6)	7 (2.8)	8 (3.1)	8 (3.1)	7 (2.8)	4 (1.6)	4 (1.6)	3 (1.2)	2 (0.8)	59 (23.2)
Source: weatherbase.com79

Law and government

Administration

Cluj-Napoca City Hall

Local council composition:
     Democratic Liberal Party (16)      Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (5)      National Liberal Party (3)      Social Democratic Party (3)

Map of Cluj-Napoca's districts (2007)

Main article: Politics of Cluj-Napoca

See also: Cluj-Napoca metropolitan area

The city government is headed by a mayor, currently (since 2004) Emil Boc,⁸⁰ re-elected in 2008. Decisions are approved and discussed by the local council (consiliu local) made up of 27 elected councillors.⁸⁰ The city is divided into 15 districts (cartiere) laid out radially, some of them with their own local administrative structure (town hall). City hall intends to develop local administrative structures for most of the districts.

Because of the last years' massive urban development, in 2005 some areas of Cluj were named as districts (Sopor, Borhanci, Becaş, Făget, Zorilor South), but most of them are still construction sites.⁸¹ Beside these, there are some other building areas like Tineretului, Lombului or Oser, which are likely to become districts in the following years.⁸²

Additionally, as Cluj-Napoca is the capital of Cluj County, the city hosts the palace of the prefecture, the headquarters of the county council (consiliu judeţean) and the prefect, who is appointed by Romania's central government.⁸⁰ The prefect is not allowed to be a member of a political party, and his role is to represent the national government at the local level, acting as a liaison and facilitating the implementation of National Development Plans and governing programmes at the local level.⁸⁰ The current prefect of Cluj County (as of 2007) is Călin Platon. Like all other local councils in Romania, the Cluj-Napoca local council, the county council and the city's mayor are elected every four years by the population.⁸⁰

Cluj-Napoca is also the capital of the historical region of Transylvania, a status that resonates to this day. Currently, the city is the largest in the Nord-Vest development region, which is equivalent to NUTS-II regions in the European Union and is used by the European Union and the Romanian Government for statistical analysis and regional development. The Nord-Vest development region is not, however, an administrative entity.⁸⁰ The Cluj-Napoca metropolitan area should be functional as early as June 2008,⁷ comprising a population of 360,000.⁶ Besides Cluj-Napoca, it includes communes such as Apahida, Feleacu, Ciurila, Floreşti, Gilău, Baciu and Chinteni.

The executive presidium of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) and all its departments are headquartered in Cluj,⁸³⁸⁴ as are local and regional organisations of most Romanian political parties. In order to counterbalance the political influence of Transylvania's Hungarian minority, nationalist Romanians in Transylvania founded the Party of Romanian National Unity (PUNR) at the beginnings of the 1990s; the party was present in the Romanian Parliament during the 1992-1996 legislature.⁸⁵ The party eventually moved its main offices to Bucharest and fell into decline as its leadership joined the ideologically-similar PRM.⁸⁵ In 2008, the Institute for Research on National Minorities, subordinated to the Romanian Government, opened its official headquarters in Cluj-Napoca.⁸⁶

Eleven hospitals function in the city, nine of which are run by the county and two (for oncology and cardiology) by the health ministry. Additionally, there are well over a hundred private medical cabinets and dentists' offices each.⁶³

Justice system

Cluj-Napoca has a complex judicial organisation, as a consequence of its status of county capital. The Cluj-Napoca Court of Justice is the local judicial institution and is under the purview of the Cluj County Tribunal, which also exerts its jurisdiction over the courts of Dej, Gherla, Turda and Huedin.⁸⁷ Appeals from these tribunals' verdicts, and more serious cases, are directed to the Cluj Court of Appeals. The city also hosts the county's commercial and military tribunals.⁸⁷

Cluj-Napoca has its own municipal police force, Poliţia Municipiului Cluj-Napoca, which is responsible for policing of crime within the whole city, and operates a number of special divisions. The Cluj-Napoca Police are headquartered on Decebal Street in the city centre (with a number of precincts throughout the city) and it is subordinated to the County's Police Inspectorate on Traian Street.⁸⁸ City Hall has its own community police force, Poliţia Primăriei, dealing with local community issues. Cluj-Napoca also houses the County's Gendarmerie Inspectorate.

Crime

Portion of the city's centre, as viewed from Cetăţuia

Cluj-Napoca and the surrounding area (Cluj County) had a rate of 268 criminal convictions per 100,000 inhabitants during 2006, just above the national average.⁸⁹ After the revolution in 1989, the criminal conviction rate in the county entered a phase of sustained growth, reaching a historic high of 429 in 1998, when it began to fall.⁸⁹ Although the overall crime rate is reassuringly low, petty crime can be an irritant for foreigners, as in other large cities of Romania.⁹⁰ During the 1990s, two large financial institutions, Banca Dacia Felix and Caritas, went bankrupt due to large-scale fraud and embezzlement.⁹¹⁹² Notorious was also the case of serial killer Romulus Vereş, "the man with the hammer"; during the 1970s, he was charged with five murders and several attempted murders, but never imprisoned on grounds of insanity: he suffered from schizophrenia, blaming the Devil for his actions. Instead, he was institutionalised in the Ştei psychiatric facility in 1976, following a three year long forensic investigation during which four thousand people were questioned. Urban myths brought the number of victims up to two hundred women, though the actual number was much smaller. This confusion is probably explained by the lack of attention this case received, despite its magnitude, in the Communist press of the time.⁹³

A 2006 poll shows a high degree of satisfaction with the work of the local police department. More than half the people surveyed during a 2005–2006 poll declared themselves satisfied (62.3%) or very satisfied (3.3%) with the activity of the county police department.⁹⁴ The study found the highest satisfaction with car traffic supervision, the presence of officers in the street, and road education; on the negative side, corruption and public transport safety remain concerns.

Efforts made by local authorities in the Cluj-Napoca district at the end of the 1990s to reform the protection of children's rights and assistance for street children proved insufficient due to lack of funding, incoherent policies and the absence of any real collaboration between the actors involved (Child Rights Protection Direction, Social Assistance Service within the District Directorate for Labour and Social Protection, Minors Receiving Centre, Guardian Authority within the City Hall, Police). There are numerous street children, whose poverty and lack of documented identity brings them into constant conflict with local law enforcement.⁹⁵ Following cooperation between the local council and the Prison Fellowship Romania Foundation, homeless people, street children and beggars are taken, identified and accommodated within the Christian Centers for Street Children and Homeless People, respectively, and the Ruhama centre.⁹⁶ The latter features a marshaling center for beggars and street children, as well as a flophouse.⁹⁷ As a consequence, the fluctuating movement of children, beggars and homeless people in and out of the centre has been considerably reduced, with most of the initial beneficiaries successfully integrated into the programme rather than returning to the streets.⁹⁵

From 2000 onwards, Cluj-Napoca has seen an increase in illegal road races, which occur mainly at night on the city's outskirts or on industrial sites and occasionally produce victims. There have been attempts to organize legal races as a solution to this problem.⁹⁸

Demographics

The city's population, according to the 2002 census, is 317,953 inhabitants,⁵ or 1.5% of the total population of Romania. The population of the Cluj-Napoca metropolitan area is estimated at 360,000. Finally the population of the influence area (periurban area) numbers 400,000 residents.⁶ The new metropolitan government of Cluj-Napoca should be functional as early as June 2008.⁷ According to the 2007 data provided by the County Population Register Service, the total population of the city is as high as 392,276 people.⁸ The variation between this number and the census data is explained partially by the real growth of the population residing in Cluj-Napoca, as well as by the different manner of counting: "In reality, more people live in Cluj than those who are officially registered," Traian Rotariu, director of the Center for Population Studies, told Foaia Transilvană.⁸ Moreover, this number does not include the floating population—an average of over 20 thousand people each year during 2004-2007, according to the same source.⁸

In the modern era, Cluj's population experienced two phases of rapid growth, the first in the late 19th century, when the city grew in importance and size, and the second during the Communist period, when a massive urbanisation campaign was launched and many people migrated from rural areas and from beyond the Carpathians to the county's capital.¹⁰⁸ About two-thirds of the population growth during this era was based on net migration inflows; after 1966, the date of Ceauşescu's ban on abortion and contraception, natural increase was also significant, being responsible for the remaining third.⁵⁹

From the Middle Ages onwards, the city of Cluj has been a multicultural city with a diverse cultural and religious life. According to the 2002 Romanian census, just under 80% of the population of the city are ethnic Romanians, with the second largest ethnic group being the Hungarians, who make up 19% of the population. The remainder is composed of Roma (1%), Germans (0.23%) and Jews (0.06%). Today, the city receives a large influx of migrants: 25,000 people requested residence in the city during 2007.¹⁰⁹

In terms of religion, 69.2% of the population are Romanian Orthodox and 12.2% are Reformed. The Roman Catholic and the Romanian Greek-Catholic communities claim 5.5% and 5.8% of the population respectively, while other religious groups like Unitarians (1%), Pentecostals (2.6%) or Baptists (1.2%) round out most of the rest.⁵ By contrast, in 1930, the city was 26.7% Reformed, 22.6% Greek Catholic, 20.1% Roman Catholic, 13.4% Jewish, 11.8% Orthodox, 2.4% Lutheran and 2.1% Unitarian.¹¹⁰ Contributing factors for these shifts were the extermination¹¹¹ and emigration¹¹² of the city's Jews, the outlawing of the Greek-Catholic Church (1948-89)¹¹³ and the gradual decline in the Hungarian population.

On a more historical note, the Jewish community has figured centrally in the history of Transylvania, and in that of the wider region.¹¹⁴ They were a substantial and increasingly vibrant presence in Cluj in the modern era, contributing significantly to the town's economic dynamism and cultural flourishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.¹¹⁴ Although the community comprised a significant share of the town’s population during the interwar era—between 13 and 15 percent¹¹⁵—this figure plummeted as a consequence of the Holocaust and emigration; by the 1990s only a few hundred Jews remained in Cluj-Napoca.¹¹⁴

St. Michael's Church, the city's largest Gothic-style church

In the 14th century, most of the town's inhabitants and the local elite were Saxons,³¹ largely descended from settlers brought in by the Kings of Hungary in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries¹¹⁶ to develop and defend the sou