HOUSING · THE 2021 CENSUS

How many homes were unoccupied in your county?

Choose a Romanian county or Bucharest and compare the conventional dwellings recorded as unoccupied in the 2021 census. See main, secondary and holiday dwellings separately.

Reference date 1 December 2021

41 COUNTIES AND BUCHAREST MUNICIPALITY

Choose a place and compare the dwellings counted

25.5% national rate

SELECTED PLACE

County or municipality

36.3%52,194 of 143,588 conventional dwellings

Types among unoccupied dwellings52,194

Main 26,466
Secondary 24,139
Holiday 1,589

UNOCCUPIED CONVENTIONAL DWELLINGSShare of local total

Rate

0%20%40%

Unoccupied shareRomania rate · 25.5%

Select any row. The bar shows unoccupied conventional dwellings as a share of the county or municipality total; the vertical line marks the national rate. Rows run from the highest share to the lowest.

What does “unoccupied” mean? At the census, no person was enumerated as a resident in the dwelling on 1 December 2021. The count does not tell us whether it was abandoned, in poor condition, under renovation or used seasonally.

ROMANIA2,533,876of 9,929,935 conventional dwellings · 25.5%

01 / READING THE DATA

“Unoccupied” describes a census response

On 1 December 2021, no one was enumerated as a resident in a conventional dwelling. That does not tell us whether it was abandoned, habitable, under renovation or used seasonally. Choose a county, then inspect what the count contains.

The Empty House — 1 in 4 Dwellings Stands Empty The Housing Paradox

02 / READING THE DATA

The count does not explain why dwellings lack residents

The census shows how many dwellings had no resident on the reference night, not why or what rent they might fetch. Other projects compare policy, rents and planning choices without treating the count as an explanation.

A City with Two Housing Policies Rent control: who gets the next key? Barcelona’s 2028 Airbnb question Romania’s Planning Code: which rules apply to your land or file

03 / READING THE DATA

A home also depends on its building and neighbourhood

Housing conditions also involve maintenance, earthquake classification, noise, shade and access to water or heat. These projects show registers, maps and data limits at scales from a building to a city.

Panel Block Civilization Bucharest's red-dot buildings, one by one Bucharest noise map by address: modelled road-noise levels around every building, school and park When did modernity reach your town? Vatra

The source uses the revised definitive tables from Romania’s 2021 Population and Housing Census: Table 7.1 for dwelling totals and Table 8.18 for unoccupied dwellings. County shares can be recomputed as unoccupied divided by total, rounded to one decimal place.

Housing · 21 projects

The complete collection

Projects about dwellings, apartment-block life, buildings, rents, planning, household services and access to a place to live.

Search for a project or topic

21 projects

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Buildings and homes
London's protected views: 13 sightlines and the rules on building heights
London's planning rules protect thirteen lines of sight to St Paul's, the Palace of Westminster and the Tower; the longest runs 15.6 km from a gap kept in a hedge in Richmond Park. All thirteen, drawn from the government's 2012 Directions, with the height limit under each, the real ground and roofs from laser survey, and a postcode look-up.
Neighbourhoods and cities
Bucharest noise map by address: modelled road-noise levels around every building, school and park
The City's official noise maps existed only as PDF images. Type a street and number to see the modelled level around the building, at night and as a 24-hour average, against the WHO limit of 45 dB. Nearly 9 in 10 homes exceed it at night.
Buildings and homes
The tallest building in Bucharest, 1933 to today: the four that held the record
The Telephone Palace, Casa Scînteii, Tower Center International and Sky Tower drawn to one scale beside a ruler in metres, plus a 250 m chimney. You climb the ruler with the text, see who held the record and for how long, and choose the floors of your own block to find which record it would have broken.
Buildings and homes
Bucharest's red-dot buildings, one by one
Search a street and see the buildings on Bucharest's official seismic-risk list in 3D. Of the 2,796 addresses on the 19 May 2026 list, 2,623 could be placed on the map; the others remain in the table.
Buildings and homes
The 1977 earthquake, over today's red-dot buildings
Follow the 1977 wave across a 3D map of Bucharest, see the damage recorded for each square kilometre and search today's seismic-risk list. The historic record describes map squares, not what happened to any one building.
Buildings and homes
Eixample, Barcelona: what was built in Cerdà's courtyards, block by block
In 1859 Cerdà drew blocks built along their edges with open middles. Spain's cadastre, building by building: across 470 blocks, 73.8% of the ground is built at street level and only 54.7% from the first floor up. The Eixample in three dimensions, cut at any floor, and the rules that roofed the courtyards, from 1859 to today.
Census and data
The Empty House — 1 in 4 Dwellings Stands Empty
The 2021 Census counts 2.53 million unoccupied dwellings — 25.5% of the housing stock. In Mehedinți 36.3% are empty. County map, breakdown and why the rural empty stock does not solve city rents.
Policy and rules
Romania Keeps Building. But For Whom?
Romania's national statistics office counts, every year, how many dwellings exist in every locality. Since 1992 the housing stock has grown 29,5%, even as the domiciled population fell 8,3% — and in 65,2% of 2.946 localities, housing grew exactly where people left.
Neighbourhoods and cities
Emptying of people, not of homes
Of 1,979 Romanian localities that had fewer residents in 2020 than in 2000, 1,556 have more dwellings. Look up your own place and see on a satellite image how much ground under buildings was added.
Census and data
The Housing Paradox
95.3% homeowners on paper, 40.5% overcrowding inside the rooms. How the 1990 fire sale produced a nation of asset-rich, cash-poor owners.
Household services
When did modernity reach your town?
A year-by-year timeline of water, sewerage, gas and district-heating networks for 3,181 Romanian localities from 1990 to 2025. Modernity arrived in layers: 1,065 have piped water but no sewerage, and 56 of 382 district-heating systems remain.
Buildings and homes
Panel Block Civilization
The ethnography of the stairwell, concrete, and forced proximity: 8.4 million Romanians in an endless acoustic and spatial experiment. 36 field rules, the interactive noticeboard, and the stairwell friction audit.
Census and data
One home in four
The law requires the policy on every dwelling. PAID’s 31 July 2026 table shows 24.9%. In Pechea, after the flood, policies rose from 248 to 962.
Household services
Vatra
Romania's 2021 census: 42.6% of dwellings report wood heat, and 4.97% have no heating at all. An interactive map of all 42 counties.
Household services
What Does a Month in Romania Cost? A Budget Simulator
Single-person monthly budget simulator for Bucharest: observed food basket, official STB passes, PMB taxi rates, ECB conversion to yuan; no rent figures (portal terms), you enter yours.
Policy and rules
Barcelona’s 2028 Airbnb question
Barcelona plans to end its current HUT licences in 2028. This guide examines the housing conversion, event capacity, law, evidence and the case for both regulated Airbnb and phase-out.
Neighbourhoods and cities
Urban shadow
An interactive view of daylight: choose a city, move the hour, and watch the sun, building, and shadow reshape the same day.
Policy and rules
Rent control: who gets the next key?
An explainer about the real gain for protected tenants and the cost rent control can shift onto people looking for the next home.
Policy and rules
A City with Two Housing Policies
How cities can finance affordable housing while planning preserves scarcity: four tools, political incentives and later evidence.
Policy and rules
Romania’s Planning Code: which rules apply to your land or file
What the Code says, what the ministry says and what city halls are doing: new forms, deadlines and clarifications, with current sources.
Neighbourhoods and cities
How Bucharest spread into Ilfov since 1975: a satellite map of buildings, locality by locality
Ilfov now has more ground under buildings than Bucharest itself: since 1990, buildings have covered 42.1 km² of new ground in Ilfov and 11.1 km² in the city. The 1975–2020 satellite map for every street, neighbourhood and commune, with census population.

About the collection

The figures come from the revised definitive tables of Romania’s Population and Housing Census, with a reference date of 1 December 2021; the local source files were captured on 31 August 2026. The rate is unoccupied conventional dwellings divided by all conventional dwellings in each county or in Bucharest municipality, rounded to one decimal place. “Unoccupied” means no person was enumerated there as a resident. A secondary or holiday dwelling may be habitable; the census does not measure building condition, abandonment, rental supply or why no resident was counted. Bucharest is a municipality, separate from Ilfov County. Linked pages offer explanations and tools with different purposes; check dates and conditions in each project.

Reviewed 2026-10-16 · Collection as text

Sources

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Revised Table 7.1: total conventional dwellings. Data captured on 31 August 2026.
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Revised Table 8.18: unoccupied conventional dwellings by status. These data do not measure habitability.