A commune (''comună'' in

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...

) is the lowest level of administrative subdivision in

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

. There are 2,686 communes in Romania. The commune is the rural subdivision of a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities ...

s, such as towns and cities within a county, are given the status of ''

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

'' or ''

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

''. In principle, a commune can contain any size population, but in practice, when a commune becomes relatively urbanised and exceeds approximately 10,000 residents, it is usually granted city status. Although cities are on the same administrative level as communes, their local governments are structured in a way that gives them more power. Some urban or semi-urban areas of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants have also been given city status. Each commune is administered by a mayor (''primar'' in Romanian). A commune is made up of one or more villages which do not themselves have an administrative function. Communes, like cities, correspond to the European Union's level 2

local administrative unit Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics or NUTS (french: Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques) is a geocode standard for referencing the subdivisions of countries for statistical purposes. The standard, adopted in 2003, ...

(LAU). Florești, in Cluj County, is the largest commune in Romania by population, with over 22,000 inhabitants. Bistra, in Alba County, is the largest commune in Romania by surface area, covering an area of . Other sources list Nucșoara, in Argeș County as the largest commune in Romania; this commune covers an area of .

References

{{Articles on second-level administrative divisions of European countries Subdivisions of Romania Romania 2 Communes, Romania

See also

References