Romania (formerly sometimes spelled Rumania and Roumania) is a country in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Ukraine and Moldova in the northeast, Hungary and Serbia in the west and Bulgaria to the south. Romania also has a small sea coast on the Black Sea.
Romānia
A large part of Romania's borders with Yugoslavia and Bulgaria is formed by the Danube. The Danube is joined by the Prut River[?], which forms the border with Moldova.
The Carpathian Mountains dominate the western part of Romania, with peaks up to 2,500 m, the highest, Moldoveanu, reaching 2,544 m.
After the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989-91, Romania was left with an obsolete industrial base and a pattern of industrial capacity wholly unsuited to its needs. In February 1997, Romania embarked on a comprehensive macroeconomic stabilisation and structural reform programme, but reform subsequently has been a frustrating stop-and-go process. Restructuring programs include liquidating large energy-intensive industries and major agricultural and financial sector reforms. In 1999 Romania's economy contracted for a third straight year - by an estimated 4.8%. Romania reached an agreement with the IMF in August for a US $547 million loan, but release of the second tranche was postponed in October because of unresolved private sector lending requirements and differences over budgetary spending. Bucharest avoided defaulting on mid-year lump-sum debt payments, but had to significantly draw down reserves to do so; reserves rebounded to an estimated $1.5 billion by yearend 1999. The government's priorities include: obtaining renewed IMF lending, tightening fiscal policy, accelerating privatisation, and restructuring unprofitable firms. Romania was invited by the European Union in December 1999 to begin accession negotiations.
The official language is Romanian, making Romania the only Eastern Block country where a Romance language is spoken. Sizeable minorities of Hungarian (about 8% of the population) and German descent, mostly in Transylvania, also speak Hungarian and German. Other ethnic groups include Roma gypsies and natives of Romania's neighbouring countries.
Most Romanians are members of the Romanian Orthodox Church[?], which is one of the churches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Catholicism is also represented, mostly in the areas inhabited by population of Hungarian descent, mostly in the western part of the country. In Dobrogea, the region lying on the shore of the Black Sea, there is a small Islamic minority, a remnant of the Ottoman colonization of that province in the past.
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