Current Time in Braşov, Romania

Brasov lies in the centre of Romania, in the historic region of Transylvania, in a wide basin ringed by the peaks of the Southern Carpathians. The forested mass of Mount Tampa rises directly above the old town, and the mountain resorts of the Prahova valley and the Bucegi range are close by. Winters are cold and snowy, summers pleasantly warm, and the position at the meeting point of routes across the mountains has determined the fortunes of the city for eight hundred years.

About two hundred and fifty thousand people live in Brasov, with more in the surrounding communes, making it one of the largest cities in the country. Under communist rule it became a centre of heavy industry, producing tractors, lorries, machine tools and aircraft parts, and although much of that has disappeared, manufacturing remains significant, joined now by automotive components, software, logistics and a rapidly growing tourism sector. The city is consistently ranked among the most attractive places to live and work in Romania.

It was founded in 1211 by the Teutonic Knights and settled by German colonists known as Transylvanian Saxons, who called it Kronstadt and built it into one of the most prosperous trading towns of medieval Europe, controlling commerce between the Ottoman lands to the south and the kingdom of Hungary. Its guilds, fortifications and Lutheran reformation left a lasting mark. Romanians lived in the separate quarter of Schei outside the walls, where the church of Saint Nicholas and the first Romanian language school preserve an equally important heritage. The city passed to Romania after the First World War, was briefly renamed Orasul Stalin in the 1950s, and was the site of major workers' protests in 1987 that anticipated the fall of the regime.

The Black Church, a vast Gothic building blackened by fire in 1689 and holding a celebrated collection of Anatolian carpets and one of the largest mechanical organs in the region, dominates the centre. Around it, the Council Square with its pastel merchant houses and old town hall forms one of the finest urban ensembles in Romania. Sections of the medieval walls survive with the White and Black towers and the Weavers' Bastion, and Rope Street, barely more than a metre wide, is among the narrowest streets in Europe. A cable car climbs Tampa to a viewpoint over the roofs, and the resort of Poiana Brasov just above the city is the leading ski destination in the country. Bran Castle, marketed worldwide for its Dracula associations, and the fortified Saxon churches of the surrounding villages are short excursions.

Cultural life includes a philharmonic orchestra, an opera house, museums of history and ethnography, and the long-running Golden Stag music festival. Transilvania University of Brasov has tens of thousands of students across many faculties. Railways connect the city to Bucharest in around three hours, a new international airport opened nearby in 2023, and mountain roads lead in every direction.

Brasov is important as one of the best preserved medieval cities in eastern Europe and as the gateway to the Romanian Carpathians.