Ungheni (Mureș)

Ungheni is located roughly in the middle of Transylvania , at the mouth of the Niraj River in the Mureș . The district capital Târgu Mureș is located about 10 km northeast.

history

Orthodox Church in Ungheni, built around the Greek Catholic Church (photo taken March 2008)

Archaeological finds show that the region has been settled since the Paleolithic and Bronze Ages . The place was first mentioned in 1264 under the name Naradtew ; at that time the place belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary . In 1601 Ungheni was burned down by the troops of the Austrian general Giorgio Basta . The place also suffered from destruction in the course of the conflicts of the revolution in 1848/1849.

After the First World War , Ungheni - like the rest of Transylvania - came to Romania. As a result of the Second Vienna Arbitration Award , the place became part of Hungary again from 1940 to 1944, despite its Romanian majority, and during this time it was located directly on the Hungarian-Romanian border.

The long rural location gained in importance in 1969 with the opening of the Târgu Mureș Airport on the territory of the municipality.

Since 1997, an Orthodox church has been built in Ungheni - illegal in the opinion of critics - around an 18th-century Greek Catholic church (see picture). This was transferred to the Orthodox Church by the communist authorities in 1948. In May 2008, the demolition of the Greek Catholic Church began. This process was mentioned in the "International Religious Freedom Report 2008" of the US State Department .

In 2004 Ungheni was declared a city.

The main branches of business are agriculture and food processing.

population

At the 1850 census, of the 3339 inhabitants in the area of today's city, 2995 were Romanians , 188 Hungarians and 156 Roma . Of these, 638 lived in Ungheni in the narrower sense, the rest in the villages that are incorporated today. In 2002, 6554 people were registered in the municipality, including 5241 Romanians, 710 Roma and 599 Hungarians. 3562 lived in the actual city, 2992 in the six incorporated villages.

traffic

Ungheni is on the Alba Iulia – Târgu Mureș railway line ; The General Nicolae Dăscălescu train station is located in the city . Around eight local trains run in both directions every day. There are regular bus connections to Târgu Mureș . The European route 60 leads through Ungheni .