Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County and the main economic, social and cultural center in western Romania. Located on the Bega River, Timișoara is considered the informal capital city of the historical Banat. From 1848 to 1860 it was the capital of the Serbian Vojvodina and the Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar.
Conquered in 1716 by the Austrians from the Ottoman Turks, Timișoara developed in the following centuries behind the fortifications and in the urban nuclei located around them. During the second half of the 19th century, the fortress began to lose its usefulness, due to many developments in the military technology.
Former bastions and military spaces were demolished and replaced with new boulevards and neighborhoods. Timișoara was the first city in the Habsburg Monarchy with street lighting (1760) and the first European city to be lit by electric street lamps in 1884. It opened the first public lending library in the Habsburg Monarchy and built a municipal hospital 24 years before Vienna. Also, it published the first German newspaper in Southeast Europe (Temeswarer Nachrichten). Timișoara was the starting point of the Romanian Revolution.
Timișoara is one of the most important educational centers in Romania, with about 40,000 students enrolled in the city’s six universities. Like many other large cities in Romania, Timișoara is a medical tourism service provider, especially for dental care and cosmetic surgery. Timișoara has made several breakthroughs in Romanian medicine, including the first in vitro fertilization, the first laser heart surgery and the first stem cell transplant. As a technology hub, the city has one of the most powerful IT sectors in Romania alongside Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași and Brașov. In 2013 Timișoara had the fastest internet download speed in the world.
Nicknamed the “Little Vienna” or the “City of Flowers”, Timișoara is noted for its large number of historical monuments and its 36 parks and green spaces. Along with Oradea, Timișoara is part of the Art Nouveau European Route. It is also a member of Eurocities. Timișoara has a very active cultural scene thanks to the city’s three state theaters, opera, philharmonic and many other cultural institutions. The city will be the next European Capital of Culture in 2023.
Tourism
Timișoara is the central point of tourism in the region, attracting 80% of its tourists. In the first half of 2017, Timișoara and its surroundings attracted just over 50,000 foreign tourists, being the third most visited region in Romania, after Bucharest–Ilfov and Brașov.
In 2013, in Timișoara there were 107 accommodation units (of which 49 hotels, seven hostels, 50 pensions and an international campsite) totaling 5,547 accommodation places.
