Dăbuleni () is a town of

Dolj County Dolj County (; originally meant ''Dol(no)- Jiu'', "lower Jiu", as opposed to '' Gorj'' (''upper Jiu'')) is a county (județ) of Romania on the border with Bulgaria, in Oltenia, with the capital city at Craiova. Demographics In 2011, the coun ...

Oltenia Oltenia (, also called Lesser Wallachia in antiquated versions, with the alternative Latin names ''Wallachia Minor'', ''Wallachia Alutana'', ''Wallachia Caesarea'' between 1718 and 1739) is a historical province and geographical region of Romania ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

. It was declared a town in 2004 (Law no. 83/2004). One village, Chiașu, is administered by the town. Dăbuleni is known for the sandy areas surrounding it; since the 1980s, those areas have become part of an desert, known as the

Oltenian Sahara The Oltenian Sahara ( ro, Sahara Olteniei) is a name given to an area in the Romanian region of Oltenia covering the territory between the city of Calafat and the town of Dăbuleni, spanning an area of about , or 6% of Dolj County. The sandy ar ...

. The town is the only place in Europe where a museum dedicated to sand exists. If the north part of the town is a desert, the south part is a

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , ...

flooding area known as the or (the "Motherland of the Melons" or "of the Watermelons"), from which the Dăbuleni melons are famous in all of Romania. Dăbuleni is twinned since 2014 with

Vaugneray Vaugneray () is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France. On 1 January 2015, Vaugneray annexed the neighboring commune of Saint-Laurent-de-Vaux. It is since 2014 twinned with the Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a cou ...

, which is in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

Irrigation near Dăbuleni

With water pumped from the

, an

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been dev ...

scheme was developed during 1971 to 1975 for some 100 square kilometres of fertile land in southern

Culture

Sand Museum of Dăbuleni

The Sand Museum of Dăbuleni () is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and th ...

in Dăbuleni that has a size of . Its entrance is free and it is often visited by researchers and common people. The Sand Museum is located in the

, an area of around in the

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

, in the south of the

(near the

), where the town of Dăbuleni is located. Romania has been claimed to be the only country with a museum dedicated to sand in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

or even the world.

References

Towns in Romania Populated places in Dolj County Localities in Oltenia {{Dolj-geo-stub