The Satu Mare County

Having a varied relief and a temperate-continental climate, the Satu Mare county was inhabited for over 100,000 years Before Christ and peoples lived on the high terraces of the Tara Oasului (Remetea-Oas, Boinesti, Calinesti-Oas etc.)

In this county, the Dacians created in about 1,000 years a developed civilization with a special place in Mediesu-Aurit.

Situated in the crossroad of some important commercial routes, having numberless natural resources, the Satu Mare county (dated back from 1181) has a tumultous history with unforgettable events. Powerful fortresses of which ruines are in Satu Mare, Ardud, Mediesu-Aurit, Tamaseni, Carei, etc, Roman churches (Acas, the XIII-th century), Gothic churches (Ardud, Enu-Sancrai, Beltiug a.o.) which prove the wealth and diligence of the inhabitants of this county.

In modern times, the Satu Mare county has some personalities who gathered in the conseciousness of humanity: bishop Grigore Maior, founder of schools, Francis Kolcsey, fighter for freedom and social justice, doctor Vasile Lucaciu, defender of the Romanian population from Satu Mare county and Transylvania, magyar poet Ady Endre, painter Aurel Popp a.a.

The XX-th century marked deeply the Satu Mare county, both with its two world wars and the Union of Transylvania with Romania on December, 1st, 1918.

The Monument from Carei, created by sculptor Vida Gheza in 1964, is representative for the XX-th century here, a century with wars and catastrophes, but also a century of great progress and hopes reborn after December, 1989.

A lot of museums wait to be visited: the County Museum (archaeology, history, ethnography, and art); the Town Museum in Carei hosted by Counts Karoly's neo-Gothic castle (archaeology and natural sciences); the Town Museum in Tasnad (history of town and ethnography); the Museum of Tara Oasului in Negresti-Oas founded in 1972 (ethnography and an open-air reservation); The Swabian ethnography Museum in Petresti with its over 200 exhibits, as well as the free Dacians' Reservation in Mediesu-Aurit.