The County and the Realm. Significations and Developments in the History of Romanian Administration

Integrating both villages and towns, the longest-living territorial unit in the administrative history of the Romanian cultural area has been the county (judeţ), also known as a realm (ţinut– in Medieval Moldova). Proving its usefulness as a unifying matrix after the Union of 1918, the county was the focus of two major administrative reforms in 1929 and 1938. The former created local ministerial directorates which were made up of several counties, by historical regions, and aimed to decentralise public services. The latter – implemented during the dictatorship of Charles II – abolished all counties and replaced them with larger territorial divisions, called realms; they were no longer meant to support decentralisation, but, on the contrary, the King’s authoritarian control over the administration, according to the fascist model.