Timisoara

Timisoara is the capital city of Timis County in the Banat region of western Romania and the main economic, social and cultural center of that part of the country, situated on the Bega River and regarded as the informal capital of the historical Banat region. Austria conquered it from the Ottoman Turks in 1716, and the city developed in the following centuries around its fortifications; it was the first city in the Habsburg monarchy to install street lighting, in 1760, and the first city in Europe lit by electric street lamps, in 1884, and it also opened the Habsburg monarchy's first public lending library and published the first German-language newspaper in southeastern Europe, in 1771. With 250,849 inhabitants at the 2021 census, Timisoara is Romania's fifth most populous city and home to about 400,000 people in its metropolitan area; in December 1989 it was the starting point of the Romanian Revolution that ended communist rule. The city is one of Romania's most important educational centers, with about 40,000 students across six universities, and in 2023 it held the title of European Capital of Culture.