Oradea, Bihor County, Crișana Region, Romania

🇷🇴 Oradea is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. Seat of the Bihor county, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centres in the western part of Romania. The city is located in the north-west of the country, nestled between hills on the Crișana plain, on the banks of the river Crișul Repede, that divides the city into almost equal halves.

Located about 10 km (6.2 mi) from Borș, one of the most important crossing points on Romania's border with Hungary, Oradea ranks tenth in size among Romanian cities. It covers an area of 11,556 hectares (28,560 acres), in an area of contact between the extensions of the Apuseni Mountains and the Crișana-Banat extended plain.

Oradea enjoys a high standard of living relative to other Romanian cities and ranks among the most livable cities in the country. The city is also a strong industrial centre in the region, hosting some of Romania's largest companies. Besides its status as an economic hub, Oradea boasts a rich Art Nouveau architectural heritage and is a member of the Réseau Art Nouveau Network and the Art Nouveau European Route, Timișoara also being part of the latter.

Quarters Before 1848, Oradea was made up of four separate towns: Várad-Újváros (Villa Nova, former Vicus Szombathely), Várad-Olaszi (Villa Latinorum Varadiensium, "olasz" meaning Italian), Várad-Velence (Vicus Venetia), Várad-Váralja (Civitas Waradiensis). The names Vicus Venetia, Villa Latinorum, Vicus Bolognia, Vicus Padua and others refer to the French, Walloons and Italian inhabitants who settled in the 13th century.

Today the city is made up of the following districts called quarters (cartiere in Romanian, negyedek in Hungarian): • Calea Aradului • Calea Sântandrei • Orașul nou (city centre) • Dacia – Decebal • Dimitrie Cantemir • Dragoș Vodă • Dorobanților • Eastern Industrial Zone • Episcopia Bihor • Europa • Gheorghe Doja • Ioșia • Ioșia Nord • Ioșia Sud • Mihai Eminescu • Nicolae Grigorescu • Nicolae Iorga • Nufărul • Olosig • Oncea • Podgoria • Rogerius • Salca • Seleuș • Splaiul Crișanei • Subcetate • Tokai • Universității • Velența • Vie, also known as Podgoria • Western Industrial Zone.

Economy Oradea has long been one of the more prosperous cities in Romania. The per capita GDP of Oradea is approximately 150% of the Romanian average. After 1989, due to its important base of consumers, Oradea enjoyed an economic renewal, not so much in industry but rather in the services sector such as trade and tourism.

Oradea has an unemployment rate of 6.0%, slightly lower than the Romanian average but much higher than Bihor County's average of around 2%. Oradea currently produces around 63% of the industrial production of Bihor County while accounting for 34.5% of the population of the county. Its main industries are furniture, textiles and clothing, footwear and food processing. Oradea economy is sustained largely by small and medium business and the property taxes paid by citizens.

In the fiscal year 2012, Oradea had the largest budget in the Transylvania region, overcoming its neighbour cities, Arad and Cluj-Napoca. Some large Romanian companies, such as Adeplast, RCS-RDS, European Drinks or FrigoExpress are located in Oradea. Oradea is using geothermal electricity from water two km below ground, which provides 7% of the energy for its district heating system. That system serves 70% of the city's population with heat and hot water.

Education Oradea is one of the main education centres of Romania. The city is home to the University of Oradea, one of the largest universities in the country. There are also several private universities, one being Agora University, a modern academic institution founded in 2000. Emanuel University, an accredited private Baptist university, also exists in the city since 2002.

As of 2012, there had been 232 years since the inauguration of higher education in Oradea and 48 years of continuous higher education. A higher institution for philosophic teaching was founded in Oradea in 1780, which was to become in 1788 the Faculty of Law and was the oldest faculty within a vast region of Eastern Europe.

After 1921, all the courses at the Law Faculty were taught in Romanian. In 1923, the foundation of two theological academies gave new dimensions to the academic life in Oradea. The Law Academy of Oradea, together with the two theological academies, was to make another step forward by integrating a faculty of letters, thus achieving the old desideratum of creating a University of Crișana in Oradea.

After a thirty-year break in the activity of the Law Academy of Oradea, on 1 October 1963, an order of the Ministry of Education established in Oradea a 3-year Pedagogic Institute meant to do away with the scarcity of teachers in secondary education. The new institution of higher education began its activity with two faculties: Philology and Mathematics-Physics, and a year later other two faculties, History-Geography and Physical Education, were added.

In May 1990, a decree of the Romanian Government established the Technical University of Oradea, later called the University of Oradea, and based on impressive traditions of academic life in the town. It was an act of scientific and cultural restoration long expected in the life of the Romanian society, a major gain of the people's Revolution of December 1989, one of the greatest Romanian achievements in Crișana after the Great Union on 1 December 1918. This is how the dream of several generations of scholars came true, clearly expressed by a historian of Oradea: "As regarding the future, the desire of all well-meant Romanians is to establish in Oradea a complete university, the lights of which will shine across the entire western border of Romania". Today, the University of Oradea is an integrated institution of higher education of this kind, comprising 18 faculties.

The mission of the University of Oradea is to train and educate on a large scale both the students and also the high education graduates, as well as to approach certain domains of science and technology at high level.

The structure of the university contains academic education, postgraduate education, and scientific research.

Research inside the University of Oradea is developing in the areas of natural and physical sciences, as well as in the area of social and human sciences, covering the following: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Sciences of Life, Agricultural Sciences, Medical Sciences, Technological Sciences, Economical Sciences, Geography, History, Juridical Sciences and Law, Linguistics, Pedagogy, Political Sciences, Psychology, Letters and Arts, Sociology, Philosophy. The educational process is based on the curricula for long undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

One of the oldest private universities in Romania is also situated in Oradea. The Sulyok István Reform College was founded in the spring of 1990 by the Királyhágómelléki Reform Church. In 1999 the school became entirely independent from the Protestant Theology College of Cluj-Napoca and changed its name to Partium Christian University. It presently operates with 12 faculties and a student body of 1400; the language of instruction is Hungarian.

Tourist attractions The old city centre is one of the main tourist highlights in Oradea, as are the Băile Felix health spas, accessible by bus and located just outside the city.

Other sites that attract a considerable number of tourists include: • Baroque Palace of Oradea – today Muzeul Țării Crișurilor. It was the Roman Catholic bishop's palace until 1945, when the Communist regime took the building into public ownership. It was returned to the Roman Catholic Church in 2003. Its collection includes many fossils of dinosaurs and birds from the bauxite mines at Cornet-Brusturi. • Roman Catholic Basilica-Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary, or simply "Baroque Cathedral" ("Catedrala barocă") – the largest Baroque cathedral in Romania, and home to a skull relic and 2 statutes of St. King Ladislaus I of Hungary. • Cetatea Oradea – Oradea's Fortress, with a pentagonal shape, is a fortification with walls of rock on some portions and wood towers situated at the gate and at the corners. • Biserica cu Lună – a church with an astronomical clock depicting the phases of the moon, a unique feature in Europe. • Pasajul Vulturul Negru – the "Black Eagle Palace" (or "Eagle Palace") shopping galleria, named after its famous stained glass eagle in the ceiling. • Ady Endre Museum – a museum dedicated to one of the greatest Hungarian poets and a former resident of Oradea. • Teatrul de Stat Oradea – the Oradea State Theatre (also known as the Queen Mary Theatre, or Teatrul Regina Maria) on Ferdinand Square in the heart of the city, completed in 1900. • Strada Republicii – regarded as one of the most beautiful streets of Transylvania, it displays a great number of Art Nouveau buildings. • Some 100 religious sites of different denominations in Oradea, including three synagogues (only one still in use) and the largest Baptist church in Eastern Europe, Emmanuel Baptist Church.

Sports CSM Oradea is Oradea's professional basketball club that plays in the country's 1st division, Liga Națională, competition that the club won it, in 2016 and 2018, also competing in international competitions such as Champions League. The team plays its home matches at the Arena Antonio Alexe.

FC Bihor, founded in 1958, club colors were red and blue, and the logo includes the year 1902, when the first football match was played in Oradea in Réday Park, was the city's most representative club in the Romanian football system for 58 years, the club was dissolved in 2016, after important financial problems. A phoenix club appeared in 2022, under the same name FC Bihor Oradea

CA Oradea (CAO), founded in 1910 became famous, after the annexation of Northern Transylvania by Hungary during WW II, the football club played in the Hungarian Championship under the Hungarian translation Nagyváradi Atlétikai Club (NAC), and won the championship at the end of the 1943–1944 season. CA Oradea is one of only three football clubs who played and won national championships in three countries (the other two are SK Rapid Wien and Derry City). After FC Bihor dissolution CAO was refounded in the spring of 2017, at 54 years after its dissolution. In the late years another club appeared on the city's football stage, Luceafărul Oradea, club that was founded in 2001 and now is playing in the Liga II, being the most representative football club of the city and Bihor County, at this moment. Many important footballers were born in Oradea over time, such as: Iuliu Baratky, Cosmin Bărcăuan, Elemér Berkessy, Zeno Bundea, Zoltan Crișan, Claudiu Keșerü, Attila Kun, Erik Lincar, Marius Popa, Paul Popovici, Francisc Spielmann, Albert Ströck, and Ion Zare.

CSM Digi Oradea is Oradea's professional water polo club, it evolves in the Romanian Superliga, competition that it won 9 times in a row and also have a regular presence in LEN Champions League or LEN Euro Cup, being a finalist in the last one.