Satu Mare County

Satu Mare County ( ro, Județul Satu Mare, ) is a county (județ) of Romania, on the border with Hungary and Ukraine. The capital city is Satu Mare.

Name

In Hungarian, it is known as ''Szatmár megye'', in German as ''Kreis Sathmar'', in Ukrainian as Сату-Маре, and in Slovak as ''Satmárska župa''.

Demographics

Satu Mare is a multicultural city, with a population mix of Romanian, Hungarian, Roma, German, and other ethnicities.

In 2002, Satu Mare County had a population of 367,281 and the population density was .National Institute of Statistics,
"Populația după etnie"
''

* Romanians – 58.8%
* Hungarians – 35.2%
* Roma – 3.7%
* Germans (Sathmar Swabians) – 1.7%
* Ukrainians, Slovaks, other

In 2011, its population was 329,079 and population density was .

* Romanians – 57.73%
* Hungarians – 34.5%
* Roma – 5.32%
* Germans (Sathmar Swabians) – 1.51%
* Rusyns, Ukrainians, Slovaks, other

Hungarians mostly reside along the border with Hungary, but some are also scattered throughout the whole county. Historically, Hungarians were concentrated in the cities, where administration resides, while the Romanian population was larger in the villages throughout the county. In 1930, the Hungarians represented 41.9% of the urban population in Satu Mare County and only 20.0% of the population in the villages according to census data.
Recensământul general al populației României din 29 Decemvrie 1930", vol. II, pag. 394, Institutul Central de Statistică, (published in French and Romanian)
The proportion of different ethnic groups varied throughout history, due to regime and political changes. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the Hungarian population increased its proportion greatly, in 1880 representing 44.4% and in 1910 reaching 55.1% of the county population, according to Árpád E. Varga.
Árpád E. Varga, Hungarians in Transylvania between 1870 and 1995, Original title: Erdély magyar népessége 1870–1995 között, Published in Magyar Kisebbség 3–4, 1998 (New series IV), pp. 331–407, Translation by Tamás Sályi, Linguistic editing by Rachel Orbell, Published by Teleki László Foundation. Budapest, March 1999" After World War I the Hungarian and German population declined.

Geography

Satu Mare County has a total area of .

In the north are the Oaș Mountains, part of the Eastern Carpathians. This makes up around 17% of the area. The remainder is hills, forming 20% of the area, and plains. The western part of the county takes up the Eastern part of the Pannonian Plain.

The county is crossed by the Someș River