The city in Romania that boasted more tourists than inhabitants last year

A Romanian city can boast more tourists than inhabitants. Roughly 370,000 visitors arrived in Cluj-Napoca (Transylvania, central Romania) for tourist purposes last year, which is a first considering that the city counted a population of 325,000 inhabitants at the latest census. So, last year Cluj was the first city in Romania that had more tourists than inhabitants.

Most of the foreign tourists came from Europe and USA. At the same time, most of the tourists last year have visited for the first time Cluj-Napoca.

Visitors were particularly interested in seeing the central squares, Unirii Square, Museum Square and Cetatuia Hill providing an exquisite view of the city, the Botanical Garden, considered the most beautiful one in Romania, and the Central Park.

The city’s central square is hosting one of the most representative monuments of the Gothic architecture in Transylvania, being the most sought-after sight in Cluj-Napoca.

As a matter of fact, the city’s architecture is mostly impressive for foreign tourists, along with the over 500-year history of the St. Michael Church.

According to the city hall’ s spokesperson, there were 15 pc more tourists in 2016 than in 2015. Almost a quarter of those 370,000 visitors were foreign tourists. The number of foreign tourists was up by 10 pc last year as against 2015.

However, Romanian tourists top the visitor ranking, while French visitors ranked second and Germans third. Spaniards, Brits, Italians, Americans, Poles, Israelis and Hungarians completed the ranking.

Cluj-Napoca was the fourth most visited city in Romania in 2016, after Bucharest, Constanta and Brasov.

Dubbed as Romania’s Silicon Valley, hosting a lot of performing IT web development companies and multinationals’ branches and regional centers (such as for Siemens or Porche), Cluj-Napoca is also more and more famous for its tremendous wide cultural life, being the stage of renowned music and film festivals, as UNTOLD or TIFF.

The second most populous city in Romania, Cluj-Napoca city is today one of the most important academic, cultural, industrial and business centres in Romania. Among other institutions, it hosts the country’s largest university, Babes-Bolyai University, the famous Botanical Garden, as well as the largest Romanian-owned commercial bank. In 2015, Cluj-Napoca was the European Youth Capital.