Teleorman County
The territory of Teleorman county has been inhabited since times immemorial
as proved by historical and archaeological diggings and findings:
roads, ruins of citadels and strongholds, trenches, hillocks and barrows,
ceramic and metal objects, implements, weapons, coins and others.
As an administrative entity, Teleorman had boundaries as early as
1336 but was organised as such under the rule of Mircea the Old. It
is for the first rime mentioned in a document of May 14, 1441 – a
charter signed by ruling prince Vlad Dracul. After numerous
administrative changes, it is re-established in 1968 but on different
coordinates and with the seat in Alexandria. At present the county
had three municipalities, two towns and 83 communes with 231 villages.
Human settlements are generally scattered along the main inland rivers
in the valleys of the Danube, the Olt, the Vedea, the Teleorman, the
Calmatui, the Urlui, the Glavacioc and others. In the 14th-18th centuries
Teleorman county’s economic life did not differ much from that of
other zones of Wallachia. Towards the end of the 18th century it entered
a period of modernisation. Agriculture was still predominant but market
towns began to develop. Mills and the first factories opened in the
area in Turnu Magurele, Alexandria, Rosiorii de Vede and Zimnicea.
In modern times Teleorman, just as many other parts of the country,
contributed to the big moments of the fight for liberation and social
justice for independence as well as for the assertion of the rights
and national unity of the Romanian people. This part of the country
played an important role in the 1821 and 1848 Revolutions, in the
Union of the Principalities in 1859 and in the 1877-1878 Independence
War. Until the first decades of the 20th century it consolidated its
status of breadbasket of the country. In the contemporary period Teleorman
also played an important role in the war for the reintegration of
the country of 1916-1918, in the accomplishment of the Great Union
of December 1, 1918, as well as in the course of World War II (1941-1945)
on both the eastern and the western battlefields. In the inter-war
period Teleorman continued to rank among the counties with the biggest
cereal crops. The existing production centres of the edible oil, dairy,
woodworking and milling industries developed while new ones emerged.
After World War II the economy of the county developed
more particularly after some important economic enterprises were commissioned:
the Turnu Magurele chemical fertilisers works (1965), the enterprises
manufacturing apparatuses and accessories (1969), electrical panels
and boards (1972) and ball bearings (1974) in Alexandria; the factories
manufacturing rolling stock (1973), oil and furfurol and the brewery
(1978), in Rosiorii de Vede; the sugar factory (1977) and the welded
pipe enterprises (1978) in Zimnicea; last but not least the chemical
equipment manufacturing enterprise (1978), presently the electric
engine manufacturing enterprise in Turnu Magurele. In the complex
geography of cultural spirituality, Teleorman is a province by far
richer in cultural traditions and resources than it has been known
– or acknowledged – to be. Teleorman contributes to the cultural and
spiritual heritage of the country traditions as valuable and rich
as those of other parts of the country. There are 56,439 cultural
assets inventoried in Teleorman of which 7,000 are particularly valuable
and are included in the national cultural heritage. The county has
570 historical sites of which 60 historical monuments and sites, 316
architectural monuments, two memorial buildings, eight art monuments
and 15 urban and rural historical zones.
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Geographical
Outline
Teleorman county lies in the southern part of the country, the town
of Zimnicea, in latitude 43° 37’ 07” being the country’s southernmost
point. The Danube is the southern limit of the county and, at the
same time, state border with Bulgaria along 90 km. Its neighbours
are Olt county in the west, Arges county in the north-west, Dambovita
county in the north-east, Giurgiu county in the east and Bulgaria
in the south. Teleorman is one of the medium-sized counties of the
country with an area of 5,790 sq.km, that is 2.4 of Romania’s territory
(19th position in the country), made up of 85 per cent agricultural
land, five per cent forests, four per cent water, six per cent constructions,
roads. Alexandria municipality is the county seat
(62,000 inhabitants). The other municipalities are Turnu Magurele
and Rosiorii de Vede, the towns are Zimnicea and Videle; there are
in the county 83 communes with more than 230 villages. Total population:
473,199 inhabitants (2.1 per cent of the country’s population). Employed
population stood at 195,000 at the end of 1996 and rural population
at 310,114. The climate has a strong continental character with very
hot summers, with moderate rainfalls, mostly showers, and winters
with snowstorms. Global solar radiation varies between 125 and 127
Kcal/sq.cm/year with a high potential of solar energy. Mean annual
temperature is 11.5° Celsius and average annual rainfall: 530mm/sq.m.
The relief is characterised by two major forms: the plain and the
Danube river meadow, the whole territory sloping slightly to south-east.
The highest altitude is 170 m, in the northern part of the county.
The plain area is made up of four parts: Burdea, Boianu, Burnas and
the Danube Meadow. The waterway network includes the Danube and its
major tributaries: the Olt, the Urluiu, the Calmatui, and the Vedea.
The north-eastern part of the county is watered by the Dimbovnic,
the Glavacioc and the Cilnistea, tributaries of the Neajlov, all rivulets
with a 1-2 cu. m/s flow. The county is crossed by the river Vedea
with an average annual flow of 5.5 cu. m/s. Black earth, reddish
brown and forest brown earth succeed one another from north to south
in the above order. From a seismic point of view, Teleorman is part
of the 7 degree zone with the towns of Turnu Magurele and Zimnicea
part of 7.5 degree seismic zones.
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Touristic
Information
It is among
the middle counties covering 2.4 per cent of Romanis's surface.
It is situated in the South of Romania, in the Romanian Plain,
on the left bank of the Danube River. In the Teleorman county
there is one of the oldest vestiges of humanity in the world
like the ones from Ciuperceni-Turnu Magurele, dated back from
over 1.5 million years. Vestiges from the Bronze and Iron Epoches
as well as from the Dacian-Roman period are all over this county.
In 335 B.C., the famous Alexander Macedon crossed this region.
At Turnu Magurele there are the vestiges of a Roman fortress
dated from Emperor Trajan's time. By its geographic configuration
as a plain crossed by some rivers, the main point of tourist
interest is the Danube River and its meadow of a special beauty.
There are new hotels in the municipalities of Alexandria, Turnu
Magurele and Rosiorii de Vede, in the town of Zimnicea as well
as inns and motels. Thanks to the opportunities which will be
created here by establishing of some free zones and the frontier
check point (by ferry) on the Danube, at Turnu Magurele and
Zimnicea, the tourism and accommodation facilities will be developed
very fast in future. In the localities situated on the bank
of the Danube, by the development of the little agricol estates,
the agro-tourism is a good idea for the future because in this
area the hunting and fishing are certain attractions. The capital
city is the municipality of Alexandria where in the County Museum
there are over 50,000 exhibits gathered in 65 collections (archaeology,
ethnography, numi smatics, memorism, etc.). In this town there
are many churches - one of them being the "Sf. Alexandru"
Cathedral, where the bones of ruler Alexandru D. Ghica, founder
of its town, are buried, but also nice icons painted by famous
Romanian painters. In the municipality of Turnu Magurele, there
is also an interesting cathedral. Also here were built some
monuments dedicated to the bravery of the precursors, and the
Art Museum, the only one in this county, exhibits paintings
of some famous Romanian painters. In the Teleorman County were
born some important Romanian writers, and "Zaharia Stancu"
memorial house in Salcia or "Mann Preda" one in Silistea
(Rosiorii de Vede) are interesting places for the visitors of
this county.
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Economy
Profile
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