Cluj

Cluj

an industrial city in NW Romania, on the Someşul-Mic River: former capital of Transylvania. Pop.: 297 000 (2005 est.)

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Cluj 

a district in northwest Rumania, mostly on the Transylvanian plateau. Area, 6,700 sq km; population, 666,000 (1970). The administrative center is the city of Cluj. The district is responsible for 3.5 percent of Rumania’s gross industrial output. The district has manufacturers of porcelain pottery, glass, and building materials, as well as ferrous metal, leather footwear, cellulose and paper, clothing, lumber and woodworking, and food industries. Brown coal and rock salt are mined and limestone is quarried in Cluj. The district produces 2.1 percent of the country’s gross agricultural production; corn, wheat, and sugar beets are grown, and horticulture is practiced. Livestock in 1971 included 189,000 cattle, 203,000 swine, and 388,000 sheep.

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Cluj 

a city in Rumania on the Someşul-Mic. Administrative center of Cluj District. Rumania’s second largest city; population, 202,700 (1970).

Cluj is the major industrial and cultural center of Transylvania; the key industries include machine building (equipment for the textile and food industries) and food and condiments (including meat, butter, milk, and tobacco). Cluj also has leather footwear and abrasive materials plants; clothing, knitwear, furniture, chemical, and porcelain pottery enterprises; and a building materials manufacturer. Cluj University, six institutions of higher learning, a branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Socialist Republic of Rumania, theaters, a history museum, an ethnographical museum, an art museum, and a botanical garden are in the city.

Cluj was founded on the site of a Dacian, later Roman, fortress. It was first mentioned in 1173 and became a city in 1316. Remnants of fortress walls with gates, towers, and bastions (13th-17th centuries), the Gothic-style Cathedral of St. Michael (14th–15th centuries; the pseudo-Gothic north tower dates from the 19th century), the house of the Corvinus family (15th–16th centuries), a Franciscan monastery (15th–18th centuries), a baroque Jesuit church (1718–24), and the Banffy Palace (1774–85, architect I. E. Blaumann) are there. University and theater buildings in eclectic styles date from the late 19th century. Since the late 1950’s, housing areas (including Dragalina and Gheorgheni), a student quarter, a covered swimming pool (1968), an agronomy institute (1968), and the Napoca Hotel (1969) have been constructed.

REFERENCES

Morariu, T., and I. Miclea. Cluj. Bucharest, 1965.
Pascu, S̨t., and V. Marica. Clujul medieval. Bucharest, 1969.