!Romania Romania is a country, Region - Eastern Europe, Capital - Bucuresti (Bucharest), Population in 2003 - 22,334,000, Population density - 94 per sq km, Surface area - 238,391 sq km, and Currency - leu. Romania is also spelled Roumania, and Rumania. It was formerly a kingdom but now a unitary semi-presidential republic of SE. Europe, wedged in between Russia (N.) and Bulgaria (S.), with an eastern shore on the Black Sea; the Carpathians on the W. divide it from Austro-Hungary; comprises the old principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which, long subject to Turkey, united under one ruler in 1859, and received their independence in 1878, in which year the province of Dobrudja was ceded by Russia; in 1881 the combined provinces were recognised as a kingdom; forms a fertile and well-watered plain sloping N. to S., which grows immense quantities of grain, the chief export; salt-mining and petroleum-making are also important industries; the bulk of the people belong to the Greek Church; peasant proprietorship on a large scale is a feature of the national life. BUCHAREST is the chief city and the capital, and GALATZ the chief port.