Transylvania includes central Romania, Transylvania and that versantele Carpathian Depression that bowed to it. In Transylvania are 10 counties: Alba, Bistrita-Nasaud, Brasov, Cluj, Covasna, Harghita, Hunedoara, Mures, Salaj and Sibiu.

Transylvania concept is, in terms of geographical and political understanding two distinct first concern, in a restrictive sense, only the intra-region, bounded by the Eastern Carpathians, Southern Carpathians and west of the Western Carpathians (Apuseni Mountains). This macro-regions was called in medieval Transylvania, Transylvania Princely Voivodeship ( “land beyond the forest”), its total area measuring approximately 57,000 kilometers².

The second meaning of the name refers, by extension, also in Maramures, Crisana, Satu-mare, known as Partium held, that “the parties” from Hungary, side by mid-century XVI historic core of the Transylvanian plateau, forming with the Principality of Transylvania.Ie: counties (counties) Maramures, Salaj, Satu Mare, Bihor and Arad. Surface area was even higher Partium. For example, under the Treaty of Speyer (1571), were part of Partium districts (counties) Maramures, Bihor, Zarand, Solnocul the Middle Crisna province (country) Chioarului and districts (counties) Arad and Severin.

Sometimes, Transylvania is given a very broad sense, it designated the Romanian territory west of the eastern Carpathians and north of the Southern Carpathians, thus including the Banat. Fluctuating nature of the contents limit is due to the complex evolution, historical-political, the region of age postromanã to modern times.

The total area of Transylvania, with Banat Crisana, Satmar and Maramures, totaling 100,293 km ², which repreprezinta 42.1% of the total area of Romania. Population living in this area include 7,221,733 inhabitants, a figure which represents about one third of the population of Romania.

Transylvania is the geographically a high plateau, south of the country separated by Romanian Southern Carpathians and east of Moldova in Eastern Carpathians. The western part of Transylvania (Crisan) has borders with Hungary. To the north, is bordered by Ukraine (Transcarpathian region – which includes northern Maramures history – and Ivano-Frankivsk). Plateau heights between 305 and 488 meters is irrigated by the rivers Mures River, tributaries of the Tisa and Olt River, tributary of the Danube. The largest city in the region, according to the census of 2002, Cluj-Napoca (its historic capital, alternative Sibiu and Alba Iulia) followed by Brasov.

At the end of World War I, in the context of the dual monarchy collapsed, Hungary proclaimed its independence, including in its territory and Transylvania. In these circumstances, the leaders of the Romanian National Party and the Social Democratic Party Romanian National Council established in Arad on November 3, 1918. On November 13, 1918, in Belgrade, the Hungarian government signed an armistice with the Entente, setting a demarcation line, which left the control of northern and central Hungary, Transylvania and Banat, under control of Serbia. Under these conditions, the Romanians held on November 18 / December 1, 1918 a National Assembly in Alba Iulia in 1228 designating delegates. The meeting had aprticipat approximately 100,000 people and was conducted in a decent and festive atmosphere. [30] The National Assembly decides the union with Romania Romanian-inhabited territories. After the 1918 union with Romania for a year and half, Transylvania remains autonomous under Roman rule, being managed by a Board Dirigent.

Case Assembly shall be sent King Ferdinand that on December 11/24 sanctioned union with Romania “lands covered by the decision of the National Assembly in Alba Iulia.” However, Romanian authorities do not exercise control over all the territories concerned. Romanian Army had stopped the Mures line and north of this no Dirigent Council nor still less the Kingdom of Romania was not exercised effective authority. Entente Powers ordonasera end any military operations to negotiate peace with Hungary.

Meanwhile, on March 21, 1919 power in Hungary was taken over by communists, who proclaimed the Soviet Republic of Hungary led by Bela Kun, a native of Cluj. Hungarian communist forces attacked the Czechoslovak army and Romanian troops from the territory of Transylvania in hopes of making the junction with the Soviet troops who in turn attacked in Bessarabia and Ukraine. In July 1919 the Romanian army started at the request of the Entente, the offensive against the Hungarian forces, and on August 3, 1919 occupied Budapest, breaking the Soviet regime of Bela Kun. The Romanian army withdrew from Budapest in October 1919. During stationary in Hungary, the Romanian army held several points of distribution of food to starving people, especially in large cities.

The Treaty of Trianon on June 4, 1920 shall be the border between the Kingdom of Romania and Hungary. Northern border with Czechoslovakia and Poland and the south-west with Yugoslavia is set at August 10, 1920 by the Treaty of Sèvres. The latter treaty was painful for Romania as the Romanian forced abandonment of the historical Maramures and Banat, but the Entente Powers had pushed for its completion as set borders between countries become allies after the First World War. In terms of the Hungarian state, the Treaty of Trianon is considered dictate, as they say, was not taken into account the views and some existential interests of the Hungarian state, Hungary’s borders were established not on ethnic grounds (Wilson plan) but the geopolitical and strategic-economic criteria. As a result, cities and regions Hungarian majority and minority Romanian, Serbian, Slovak was found in neighboring states railway lines and interrupting the flow of goods to and from those cities (Arad, Oradea, Subotica, Košice, Muncaciu, Novi Sad AND . a.). Treaty of Trianon placed 33% of polluting Hungarian Hungary before the war abroad.

Between the two wars, Hungary led a sustained struggle to annul the Treaty of Trianon, which the Hungarians felt a historical injustice. Some historians and politicians claim that Hungarians with Romanian land reform of 1921, which affected vast land ownership in Romania, including the Hungarian property owners, while a while after the war, Hungary’s economy has been crippled by new borders Why split what had previously been forced a single economic space [citation needed]. In the words of the Hungarian head of state between the two world wars, Admiral Miklos Horthy, “an enemy of Hungary is Romania, so that the largest territorial claims are against them.” [Citation needed]

In these circumstances the successor states of the dual monarchy tried to organize alliances able to fight the revision of peace treaties. Of these the most lasting was the Little Entente, the alliance between Romania,Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. However, the system of peace treaties of Versailles was put in danger when Hitler came to power in 1933, it proclaimed that the main objective review of the Versailles Treaty, amid political weakness (appeasement policy) of France and Great Britain before the German National Socialist dictatorship. The Munich Agreement of 1938 which incorporated the Reich and the dissolution of the Czech Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1939 marked the end of the Little Entente.

In 1940, in the context of the rise of Nazi Germany and Romania’s isolation following the collapse of its system of alliances (fall of France and Great Britain isolation), Hungary calls for review after World War frontier. King Charles II and Gigurtu government talks but negotiations have accepted the principle of Turnu Severin in summer 1940 did not lead to any results. Accordingly, foreign ministers of Italy and the Reich, Joachim von Ribbentropp and Galeazzo Ciano summoned in Vienna on August 30, 1940 the foreign ministers of Romania and Hungary, and imposed an agreement that the transition in Hungary constituted a territory of 43,492 square kilometers, with a Romanian population of 1% (as of January 1941 the Hungarian census, 1.5%, or 106,900 Romanian, Hungarian population accounting for 98.5%, or 2,344,000 people) [31], a territory known as behalf of Northern Transylvania (Hungarian Észak-Erdély). The agreement, called in Romanian historiography Vienna Award, and the Hungarian “Second Vienna Award” (the first being that the Hungarian and were surrendered in 1939 territories “Upper Hungary” / Felvidék, that southern Slovakia Today, with a predominantly Hungarian population), provides current territorial Hungary joining Satu Mare, Salaj, Maramures, Bistrita-Nasaud, Harghita, Covasna (mostly), Mures (part), Cluj (the largest part), Brunswick (the north) and part of Arad county. Southern Transylvania (the counties of Brasov, Sibiu, Alba, Hunedoara, parts of the counties of Cluj, Arad and Mures) and Banat (Timis and Caras-Severin county) remained in the composition of the Romanian kingdom.

Case of discontent both states, both Romania and Hungary, which is then desirable to annex the entire region. Submission of Hungarian army in Transylvania was marked by serious atrocities committed against minorities. For example, in northern Transylvania, Hungarian soldiers have committed atrocities and massacres against the Romanian inhabitants of several villages (Moses, Ip Jolted etc.), topping the number of dead at around 1700. Number of torture amounted to thousands.

By Article 19 of the Armistice Convention signed on September 12, 1944 by Romania with the Allies in the Second World War, after the coup led by King Michael of August 23, 1944, shall provide that the allied “agree that Transylvania (or most of them), be returned Romania, provided confirmation of the Treaty of Peace. Soviet state sought to use the postwar period the question of Transylvania in political relations between Romania and Hungary. It is significant that although the Romanian army participated in fighting in northern Transylvania, the Soviet army did not allow recovery Romanian civil authorities in the territory ceded to Vienna until March 6, 1945, in Bucharest on the Communist-dominated government was installed and led Dr. Petru Groza.

In the period between 1945-1947, until the conclusion of peace treaties between the Allies and Romania and Hungary (both have had the status of countries defeated in the Second World War), in Hungary there were steps to keep even a small part the territory acquired in 1940 (being focused on the present county of Satu Mare). However, peace treaties of Paris, in 1947, confirms the return to existing on 1 January 1938 border between Romania and Hungary (the border established by the Treaty of Trianon) and validity of the Vienna Diktat.