Bucharest

Bucharest is first recorded in 1459, as a citadel of Vlad III, the Impaler, prince of Wallachia. The Old Princely Court, whose ruins survive in the Old Town, was built up by Mircea Ciobanul in the mid-16th century, and the town competed with Târgoviște to be the capital until the court settled here for good from 1698 under Constantin Brâncoveanu. Under the Phanariot princes of the 18th century it traded through its guild streets, suffered Caragea's plague in 1813–14 and, in 1847, lost a third of its buildings in a single fire.

It became the capital of the united principalities in 1862 and of the Kingdom of Romania in 1881. Grand boulevards, eclectic architecture and a francophile high society earned it the name "Paris of the East", with Calea Victoriei as its Champs-Élysées. German troops occupied it from 1916 to 1918; between the wars it grew by about 30,000 people a year. In January 1941 the Legionnaires' rebellion brought a pogrom against its Jews, Allied bombing caused heavy damage, and on 23 August 1944 the royal coup here took Romania out of the Axis.

Communism ringed the city with tower blocks. The earthquake of 4 March 1977 killed about 1,500 people, and in the 1980s Ceaușescu levelled some eight square kilometres of the historic centre, churches and synagogues included, for his Civic Centre and the People's House. In December 1989 a rally Ceaușescu addressed on Revolution Square erupted into the revolt that overthrew his regime. In the early 21st century much of the Old Town was restored and made a pedestrian zone; the Colectiv nightclub fire of 2015 killed 64 people, and mass protests in 2017–19 opposed changes to the judicial system.

Bucharest is the centre of Romanian cultural life. The Romanian Athenaeum and the National Radio Orchestra anchor a strong classical scene, crowned in odd-numbered years by the George Enescu Festival, and the city has the National Opera, the I. L. Caragiale National Theatre and the State Jewish Theatre among many smaller stages. Two of its museums, the open-air Village Museum and the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, hold some of the richest collections of folk culture in the country.

Popular music is just as rooted here. Most of Romania's big record labels and many of its musicians are based in the city; 1970s and 1980s rock bands such as Iris and Holograf still draw crowds, and Bucharest hip hop acts such as B.U.G. Mafia are known across the country. Manele, a Roma- and Oriental-influenced pop, plays in neighbourhood discos of the working-class districts, while the jazz scene has grown since 2002 around clubs such as Green Hours. Nightlife has no single strip, but clusters in Lipscani and Regie.

The city is the seat of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch, and its patron saint, Dimitrie Basarabov, draws pilgrims each October. Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Jewish communities have their own places of worship, including the Choral Temple and the Great Synagogue. Football is the most followed sport, with rival clubs Steaua, FCSB, Dinamo and Rapid, and the 55,600-seat Arena Națională, with its retractable roof, hosts national team matches and major concerts.

The 2021 census counted about 1.72 million people in the city proper, a fall from 2011 partly as people moved out to fast-growing satellite towns in Ilfov County such as Voluntari, Popești-Leordeni and Otopeni; the wider metropolitan area has an estimated 2.33 million. Bucharest is densely built, at over 8,000 people per square kilometre, because most residents live in communist-era apartment blocks, the blocuri, in districts such as Drumul Taberei, Berceni, Titan, Militari and Pantelimon. Villas and smaller blocks fill wealthier northern and central areas such as Dorobanți, Floreasca and Cotroceni.

The city accounts for around a quarter of Romania's economic output with less than a tenth of its people. Nearly all large Romanian companies have their headquarters here, alongside the Bucharest Stock Exchange, government and banks; it is the country's largest centre for information technology, with offices of firms such as Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and Ubisoft, and a building boom has filled the north with office towers, flats and more than 20 shopping malls.

Daily life runs on long commutes by metro and car through heavy traffic, while potholes on busy roads are a standing complaint. Evenings and weekends fill the terraces of the Old Town and the big parks — Cișmigiu, King Michael I, Tineretului and Titan — and summer weekends send many residents out of the city.

Bucharest eats the full Romanian repertoire. Ciorbă, sour soup, starts many meals, and ciorbă de burtă, tripe soup, is a city favourite: thickened with sour cream and egg yolks, seasoned with vinegar and served with mujdei, a garlic sauce of crushed garlic and oil. Sarmale, minced meat and rice rolled in cabbage leaves, and mămăligă, firm cornmeal polenta, appear on traditional menus, and mici — grilled minced-meat sausages of mixed beef, lamb and pork seasoned with garlic, black pepper and thyme — come with mustard from grills across the city.

Street food is simple and everywhere. Covrigi, salted bread rings sprinkled with poppy seeds, sesame or coarse salt, are sold from small bakeries across the city, and papanași, fresh-cheese doughnuts topped with sour cream and fruit preserve, are a favourite dessert. Joffre cake, a chocolate layer cake, was created at a historic Bucharest restaurant in honour of a visit by Marshal Joseph Joffre after the First World War.

Beer halls are a city institution. Caru' cu Bere has served beer and Romanian dishes under its painted vaults since 1899, and Berăria H, in the park area of the north, is one of the largest beer halls in Europe. Wine comes from the Dealu Mare hills to the north, and țuică, plum brandy, is offered in homes before a meal. Piața Obor, successor to the old Târgul Moșilor fair, was the city's largest public market until 2007.