Svinița (, , ) is a commune in

Mehedinți County Mehedinți County () is a county () of Romania on the border with Serbia and Bulgaria. It is mostly located in the historical province of Oltenia, with one municipality (Orșova) and three communes (Dubova, Mehedinți, Dubova, Eșelnița, and Svi ...

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

, located on the

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

(in the area of the

Banat Banat ( , ; ; ; ) is a geographical and Historical regions of Central Europe, historical region located in the Pannonian Basin that straddles Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. It is divided among three countries: the eastern part lie ...

known as Clisura Dunării – ''Banatska Klisura'' in Serbian). It is composed of a single village, Svinița. It is one of four localities in the county located in the Banat.

Name

The name ''Svinjica'' means "the pig place" or "little pig" in Serbian.

History

In the autumn of 1848, the locality was the site of a daring escape of Wallachian revolutionaries kept in Ottoman custody. Maria Rosetti and Constantin Daniel Rosenthal called on the local mayor to demand that Ottoman guards hand in their weapons on what was at the time Austrian soil, and all persons arrested were consequently free to go.

Demographics

At the 2011 census, Svinița had 925 inhabitants, of which 90.3% were

Serbs The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian Cultural heritage, ancestry, Culture of Serbia, culture, History of Serbia, history, and Serbian lan ...

, 6.5%

Romanians Romanians (, ; dated Endonym and exonym, exonym ''Vlachs'') are a Romance languages, Romance-speaking ethnic group and nation native to Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Sharing a Culture of Romania, ...

, 0.9% Roma, and 2.3% others or of unknown ethnic origin. Most of the inhabitants of the commune (90.3%) were

Serbian Orthodox The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodox Christian churches. The majority of the populat ...

by religion, while most of the rest were Romanian Orthodox (6.5%).Tab13. Populaţia stabilă după religie – judeţe, municipii, oraşe, comune
2011 census results,

Institutul Național de Statistică The National Institute of Statistics (, INS) is a Romanian government agency which is responsible for collecting national statistics, in fields such as geography, the economy, demographics and society. The institute is also responsible for conduct ...

, accessed 2 March 2020. At the 2021 census, the population had decreased to 741; of those, 87.85% were Serbs and 6.61% Romanians.

Languages

The commune is officially bilingual, with both Romanian and Serbian being used as working languages on public signage and in administration, education and justice.

Notes

Communes in Mehedinți County Serb communities in Romania Localities in Romanian Banat Place names of Slavic origin in Romania {{Mehedinţi-geo-stub