Merging Romania’s communes: 86 of the 429 under 1,500 people were split from one another after 1992

How many of the 429 communes under 1,500 people were split after 1992?#

On 30 October 2026 the development minister, Alexandru Stoica, set out the timetable: communes of 1,500 people or fewer may merge voluntarily until 1 March 2027, after which the government is considering a compulsory reorganisation taking effect at the 2028 local elections. Applied to the population by registered address, which INS counts on 1 January, the threshold gives exactly the total the minister announced. On 1 January 2023, 429 communes had 1,500 registered residents or fewer. Of the eight counties whose count the press reported, six come out identical (Dolj among them, with 21), and Cluj and Mehedinți differ by one commune each. By the 2021 census, which counts the people who actually live there, it would have been 465. On 1 January 2026 it is 437.

Of the 429, 64 are communes created after 1992 and 22 are communes that new ones split from: 86 in all, one in five. Among the new communes, 27% are under the threshold; among the old ones, 14%. 50 of the new communes had fewer than 1,500 registered residents on the very first 1 January after they were created.

In 12 pairs, the new commune and the one it split from are now both under the threshold. Put back together, every pair would have more than 1,500 people:

• Dalnic and Moacșa (Covasna): 929 + 1,251 = 2,180
• Întorsura and Radovan (Dolj): 1,397 + 1,323 = 2,720
• Buești and Albești (Ialomița): 943 + 1,144 = 2,087
• Sărățeni and Balaciu (Ialomița): 1,127 + 1,375 = 2,502
• Bereni and Măgherani (Mureș): 1,285 + 1,342 = 2,627
• Ghimpețeni and Nicolae Titulescu (Olt): 1,296 + 1,102 = 2,398
• Osica de Jos and Dobrun (Olt): 1,470 + 1,383 = 2,853
• Treznea and Agrij (Sălaj): 1,039 + 1,397 = 2,436
• Șimișna and Rus (Sălaj): 1,085 + 943 = 2,028
• Dracea and Crângu (Teleorman): 1,435 + 1,295 = 2,730
• Uda-Clocociov and Slobozia Mândra (Teleorman): 1,241 + 1,321 = 2,562
• Ibănești and Alexandru Vlahuță (Vaslui): 1,460 + 1,425 = 2,885

Population by registered address, 1 January 2023.

Did the split communes keep more people?#

The 2002 census came before almost all the splits, and INS published its results on today’s boundaries. That allows the same area to be compared before and after: the old commune and the communes that split from it, added together.

Each of the 201 areas was set against whole communes in the same county whose 2002 population was within 20% of its own. From 2002 to 2021 the typical (median) gap was +0.5 percentage points, and 51% of areas lost fewer people than the communes they were compared with. Resampling puts the median between −1.5 and +2.4 points: the typical gap is two or three points at most, in either direction, over 19 years.

The result holds when the size window narrows to 10% or widens to 30%, when the comparison covers the whole development region, and when the few splits before 2002 are left out: the typical gap stays between −0.1 and +0.7 points. Nor were these areas drifting away beforehand: from 1992 to the year before the split, the typical gap in registered population against the comparison communes was −0.6 points.

The mean is +4.0 points, pulled up by a few fast-growing areas next to big cities: Rediu and Valea Lupului next to Iași, Livezeni and Corunca next to Târgu Mureș, Malu Mare and Ghindeni next to Craiova. Without the top and bottom 10% of gaps, the mean is +0.7 points. Compared with communes at the same distance from a city, the typical gap becomes +1.7 points, and the confidence ranges cross zero both near cities and far from them.

Far from cities, at least 15 km from a municipality, the comparison with all communes of the same size in the county gives −3.4 points: split areas there lost somewhat more. Compared only with communes that are also far from cities, the gap becomes +0.6 points, with a range from −3.7 to +2.4.

Does the village with the town hall lose people more slowly?#

Between 2011 and 2021, the village that hosts the town hall lost a median 3.5 points less than other villages of the same size at 100–300 people, 1.6 at 300–600 and 0.8 at 600–1,000. Above 1,000 people the gap reverses. The town-hall village is usually larger than the others, and size explains most of its advantage.

This compares villages at one point in time and cannot say what the town hall does: large villages without one are often next to cities, which pull their population up.

What a second town hall costs#

In 2025 the 235 communes created after 1992 spent 575 million lei on staff, for 487,986 residents. Staff spending in local budgets covers the town hall and the institutions under it, not teachers’ pay.

The fair comparison sets each split area against whole communes in the same county with a similar population. 80% of the areas spent more on staff per resident. The median gap was 224 lei per resident a year, and across the 199 areas it adds up to about 202 million lei in 2025.

That is not what a merger would save: merged communes usually keep some of their staff, and the effect of merging need not mirror the effect of splitting.

Which are the 429 communes under 1,500 people#

The list applies the 1,500 threshold to INS figures for population by registered address on 1 January 2023. The ministry has not published an official list.

The 235 communes created after 1992 and the communes they split from#

The year is the law’s, where the law was read; otherwise the year in the commune’s history, or the year before its first separate INS figure. The last column says how the commune it split from was confirmed.

How the splits were found, and where the numbers stop#

INS’s series of population by registered address starts in 1992. A commune that only appears in it later was created in between: 235 communes, most of them in 2004 (137). The commune each one split from was found from SIRUTA codes (the national register of localities). A village that moves to a new commune keeps its code, and the code places it right after its old commune.

That rule was checked against the annex of Law 84/2004, which created 112 communes at once: all 112 match. For another 107, the rule gives the same commune as the population drop in the year of the split; for 11, the Wikipedia article confirms it; 5 are confirmed by the codes alone.

The comparison uses the 2002 and 2021 censuses on today’s boundaries. Each split area’s 2002 population, added up, was checked against its registered population on 1 January 2002: the median ratio is 0.992 for split areas and 0.997 for other communes. How the 2002 census divided the population between the new and the old commune cannot be checked the same way, so the test uses whole areas only. The 8 families that include a town were left out of the comparison.

Here the 1,500 threshold is applied to registered population, because that base reproduces the announced total and county counts; the ministry has not said which base it used. Registered population is higher than the number of people actually living in a commune, because people who moved abroad often keep their registered address.

The result describes the splits of 1995–2010 and how many people stayed, not roads, schools or EU funds. It does not say what a merger would do. The test’s rules were written before the calculation; the comparison by distance to a city was added after the mean turned out to be pulled by suburbs.

On the same subject, a simulation of mergers with each town hall’s finances, and each commune’s population at the last three censuses:

• Redraw Romania’s administrative map yourself
• How many people are left in your commune

Sources#

1. Gazeta de Sud, 1 November 2026: the timetable set out by minister Alexandru Stoica on 30 October; 21 communes in Dolj (Romanian)
2. Jurnalul de Argeș, November 2026: 429 localities could be merged (Romanian)
3. Adevărul: hundreds of town halls could be merged; the list is not official (Romanian)
4. INS (National Institute of Statistics), TEMPO POP107D: population by registered address at 1 January, by locality, 1992–2026
5. INS, the 2002, 2011 and 2021 censuses on today’s administrative units (via citypopulation.de)
6. INS, SIRUTA register of localities, first half of 2026 (data.gov.ro)
7. Law no. 84/2004 establishing new communes, annex 1 (Official Gazette no. 310, 7 April 2004)
8. Dorin Spoaller, “Romania’s 2011 and 2021 censuses, village by village” (INS data, CC BY 4.0)
9. Ministry of Finance, 2025 local budget execution (staff spending, via the page on territorial reorganisation)
10. Administrative boundaries: ANCPI, processed by geo-spatial.org (CC BY-SA 4.0)
11. Romanian-language Wikipedia, the commune articles (each commune’s history)

Boundaries: ANCPI, via geo-spatial.org, CC BY-SA 4.0. Villages: Dorin Spoaller, CC BY 4.0, INS data; only medians computed from them appear here.