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Human and economic geography

Volume VIII |

The Position of Rural-Urban Fringe in the Framework of Human Settlement System

Abstract: The term of rural-urban fringe is more or less used in the specialized Romanian literature, which might be a consequence of the fact it superposes or confounds itself, as delimitation, with the periurban area or/and urban periphery. A brief presentation of the terms included in the equation of territorial delimitation, starting with the urban CBD to the effectively rural region, clarifies the succession of different concentric areas in a certain proportion. In order to reveal the expectancy horizon of this term, it is also necessary to study the situation at international level, where it is used to the prejudice of periurban or where both terms are used. This study emphasizes that an empirical research on terminology is far from being sufficient, the analysis of the methods used in determining the limits being also quite necessary, as our main target is to observe if the areas are superposed or if they are complementary.

Volume VIII |

Germans in Romania between the 1930s and the 2002s – Geographical Aspects

Abstract: In Romania, German ethnics arrived from Central Europe in several waves – during the XIIth-XIIIth and XVIIth-XIXth centuries – and settled mostly in the historical regions of central and Western Romania (Transilvania, Banat and Crişana) – that time under Hungarian domination or integrated in the Habsburg Empire. During the second part of the XXth century – beginning of the XXIst century, the number of these ethnics decreased – from 745.421 persons in 1930 to 60.088 in 2002 – as a consequence of Romanian’s and German’s government disloyalty from the Second World War (1940-1945), the lack of material and juridical base for the after-war generation during the communist governance, the fear, the isolation that continued after 1989 and the discredit towards the minorities’ rights, proclaimed after the Revolution of December, 1989.