Page "Geography of Romania" Paragraph 8

Romania's exterior boundaries are a result of relatively recent events.

At the outbreak of World War I, the country's territory included only the provinces of Walachia, Moldavia, and Dobruja.

This area, known as the Regat or the Old Kingdom, came into being with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-nineteenth century.

At the end of World War I, Romania acquired Transylvania and the Banat.

Some of this territory was lost during World War II, but negotiations returned it to Romania.

Although this acquisition united some 85 percent of the Romanian-speaking population of Eastern Europe into one nation, it left a considerable number of ethnic Hungarians under Romanian rule.

Disputes between Hungary and Romania regarding this territory would surface regularly, as both considered the region part of their national heritage.

Questions were also periodically raised as to the historical validity of the Soviet-Romanian border.

Bukovina and Bessarabia, former Romanian provinces where significant percentages of the population are Romanian-speaking, were part of the Soviet Union from the end of World War II to its dissolution, and subsequently part of the ( formerly Soviet ) states of Ukraine and Moldova.

Despite ongoing and potential disputes, however, it was unlikely in 1989 that Romania's borders would be redrawn in the foreseeable future.