Banat-Crisana

Banat is the south-west province of Romania. It is bordered by the Southern Carpathian Mountains to the east, the DanubeRiver to the south, the TisaRiver to the west and MuresRiver to the north.

It was a border territory with a military function. In the Middle Ages it belonged to Hungary and in the 16^th century it was conquered by Turks.  In 1718, the Turks lost the territory to the Habsburg Empire. From the end of the 18^th century, thanks to the Empress Maria Theresa’s policy of giving land to her ex-soldiers, there was a new influx of settlers: Serbians came from south of the Danube, and Germans (named “svabi”) from the south and west of Germany. Timisoara, the capital of Banat, became a typical Austrian city (it was known as “the little Vienna”). In 1918, the Banat region was divided between Romania and Yugoslavia.

Crisana is a geographical and historical region divided today between Romania and Hungary.  It is named after the Cris River, and its three tributaries are the Crisul Alb, Crisul Negru, and Crisul Repede. It is bounded to the east by the Apuseni Mountains, to the south by the Mures River, to the north by the Somes River, and to the west by the TisaRiver. The Romanian-Hungarian border cuts it in two.