# Public life: where do you start when a decision affects you?

Choose the question that brought you here and find projects about public money, rules, services, representation and oversight.

https://mariuscomper.uk/en/public-life/

- [London below the tide: every postcode measured against the Thames at high water](https://mariuscomper.uk/thames-barrier/): At 10,528 of Greater London's 177,041 postcodes the ground is lower than an ordinary spring high tide at London Bridge (3.9 m above Ordnance Datum). Any postcode set on a tide staff beside the levels of 1928 and 1953, on the city's laser-surveyed relief, and the Thames Barrier's 221 closures counted winter by winter.
- [Ceaușescu's cult, counted: how often Romania's party daily printed his name, day by day, 1962–1989](https://mariuscomper.uk/cultul-ceausescu/en/): All 9,105 issues of Scînteia, the daily of Romania's Communist Party, from 1962 to 1989 that survive in the Deva county library's scans, read by machine, word by word: Nicolae Ceaușescu's name appears 0.2 times per issue in 1962 and 69.5 times in 1989. “The most beloved son of the people” was, in January 1965, his predecessor Gheorghiu-Dej, and “the Genius of the Carpathians” was not found in the text of any issue of his years.
- [The UN veto: the 331 votes that stopped Security Council decisions, 1946–2026](https://mariuscomper.uk/cine-opreste-onu/en/): Every veto vote in the UN register, from 1946 to 2026, is one rectangle in a chart by year, coloured by the permanent member that voted against. Pick a year, a country or a subject; every entry leads to the original document. The meeting of 13 December 1955, with 16 vetoes, is shown name by name: Romania was admitted the next day.
- [The world in China's People's Daily: how often the paper mentioned each country, 1946–2025](https://mariuscomper.uk/lumea-in-ziarul-chinei/en/): 197 Chinese country names, searched for in 1,991,747 articles of the People's Daily, the newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party. Pick a country and a year: how many articles mention it, where it ranks, and its curve month by month. The United States goes from 6,235 articles in 1965 to 787 in 2024. In Romanian, English and Chinese.
- [Romania in the British Parliament, 1803–2026: two centuries of debate, counted day by day](https://mariuscomper.uk/romania-in-hansard/en/): From 1803 to today Romania's name appears 24,591 times in the debates of the British Parliament, in 9,209 debates and questions. Measured against everything said, the peak is the Crimean War; by sitting days, 1939; by mentions, 1990. Ceaușescu's state visit of 1978 brought no debate. In Romanian and English.
- [Romania in the President's Daily Brief, 1961–1977](https://mariuscomper.uk/romania-in-daily-brief/en/): From 1961 to 1977 the CIA wrote a few secret pages for the US president almost every day. Declassified in 2015 and 2016, they name Romania on 379 days. Every paragraph is here, scanned and transcribed, with white boxes where the text is still secret; for August 1968 each one sits beside that day's front page of Scînteia, the Romanian party daily.
- [1989 in China's People's Daily: the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, day by day](https://mariuscomper.uk/1989-in-ziarul-chinei/en/): All 365 issues of the People's Daily for 1989, with the 729 news items on Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania: the page, the length and the headline of each. The opening of the Berlin Wall is 554 characters on page 4, without the word “wall”. In Romanian, English and Chinese.
- [How independent of Moscow was Romania? What 70 years of UN votes show](https://mariuscomper.uk/romania-la-onu/en/): 7,607 recorded votes in the UN General Assembly, 1955 to 2025, drawn as a city at night: a tower for every year, a window for every vote. The lit windows are the votes Romania cast differently from Moscow. Up to 1989 Romania did so 490 times, Bulgaria 14. In Romanian, English and Chinese.
- [Romania in China's People's Daily: eighty years of Romania–China relations in 16,793 articles](https://mariuscomper.uk/romania-china/en/): The People's Daily named Romania in 16,793 articles between 1946 and 2025. Their month-by-month chart has two peaks, 1971 and 1978, and one almost empty year, 1968. Every year has its card, with three headlines printed in Beijing, in Chinese and in translation. In Romanian, English and Chinese.
- [Bucharest noise map by address: modelled road-noise levels around every building, school and park](https://mariuscomper.uk/harta-zgomotului-bucuresti/en/): 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.
- [First railway in Romania: 1854 or 1869? Oravița–Baziaș, Bucharest–Giurgiu and the three meanings of “first”](https://mariuscomper.uk/prima-cale-ferata-romania/en/): The press calls two different lines “the first railway in Romania”. Choose what “first” means and watch the answer change, then ride the real 1854 track, which leaves today’s Romania and comes back.
- [How long is the walk to A&E](https://mariuscomper.uk/urgenta-cea-mai-apropiata/en/): Type a Bucharest street and learn how many minutes on foot you are from the nearest emergency unit, on the 3D map: 4,372 streets measured, 8 units (6 adult, 2 paediatric) and 6 sectors — the city median is 33.7 minutes, and 7.6% of points are within 10 minutes of one.
- [One licence, two speeds](https://mariuscomper.uk/licenta-doua-viteze/en/): A table covering 43 police forces shows that new firearms grants and renewals can take very different amounts of time.
- [Need a psychologist, an MRI or sick leave in Romania?](https://mariuscomper.uk/drumul-prin-sistemul-medical/en/): Pick what's happening to you — a psychologist, pregnancy, cancer, an MRI, sick leave, a dentist — and follow the route through Romania's health system, door by door: today's rule, checked at CNAS, and what Sorana Stănescu documented in 53 editions of Foaia de observație, each linked. In Romanian and English.
- [Bucharest's red-dot buildings, one by one](https://mariuscomper.uk/cladiri-cu-risc-seismic/en/): 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.
- [Which medical specialties are in short supply in 2026: two join after two years without changes](https://mariuscomper.uk/specialitati-medicale-deficitare-2026/en/): The official 2026 list names 25 shortage specialties, up from 23 in 2024–2025: geriatrics and child psychiatry join, nothing leaves, and 11 of the 25 concern children or newborns. What the label means for patients, parents and residents — in Romanian and English.
- [Is there an alternative to shooting Romania's bears?](https://mariuscomper.uk/ce-facem-cu-ursii/en/): The case for quotas and the case for prevention, each at its strongest, checked against Romania's genetic census, 66 mapped attacks from 2024–2026, the studies on each method and what Canada, Japan, Slovenia and Slovakia do. With a model of the quota and a costed plan.
- [Who owns the water?](https://mariuscomper.uk/cine-detine-apa/en/): At Cernavodă, cooling water follows a physical route. On 2 September, CNSU approved a temporary, modular and reversible plan activated at 1.58 m in the CNE intake basin; on 3 September, INHGA reported 1,500 m³/s at Baziaș and the Energy Ministry said there were no conditions to discuss reopening in the next ten days.
- [The Bill from the Sky](https://mariuscomper.uk/factura-de-pe-cer/en/): Three drones downed in three days, the public costs of interception and the options of a layered counter-drone defence, in a briefing with a timeline and scenario calculator. The MApN table updated 12 September 2026 reports 71 attacks near the border, 55 aircraft-scramble situations, 27 intrusions, 4 shootdowns and 37 situations with drones or fragments. A MApN statement on the 5–6 September Tulcea alert reports no intrusions into national airspace; at Viișoara, a drone found on the ground was later neutralised by controlled detonation, and provenance remains under investigation.
- [The children put up for auction in 1851 had names](https://mariuscomper.uk/dezrobirea-1856/en/): The 1851 Heleșteni auction list: 351 enslaved Roma, by name and age, 146 of them children. What slavery meant, how it ended law by law in 1855–1856, and who was compensated.
- [The women's vote that took 30 years](https://mariuscomper.uk/votul-femeilor/en/): From the 1918 promise to the full 1946 vote: the 1925 co-optation, the 1930 local ballot boxes and the 1938 paper right, in four chapters, a map and a polling-station game.
- [Horea 1784: revolt, wheel, patent — Mesteacăn, Deva, Alba Iulia](https://mariuscomper.uk/horea-1784/en/): The 11 November ultimatum, the winter war, the 28 February wheel and the 2 August 1785 patent: what the rising demanded, week by week.
- [Whose revolution was 1821? Tudor against the Eteria](https://mariuscomper.uk/tudor-1821/en/): Pades in January, Bucharest in March, Golesti in May. Two proclamations, one country, and five months that ended the Phanariote century.
- [Dragonul Roșu: Bucharest's Chinese wholesale city](https://mariuscomper.uk/dragonul-rosu/en/): Opened 2003, 10 pavilions, 3,713 shops (this page's sum): Dragonul Roșu is the on-the-ground form of trade with China. Imports from China, from $90m in 1995 to $8,509m in 2024 — 30 years, eight chapters, eight markers, each with a source.
- [How many school days are left?](https://mariuscomper.uk/cate-zile-de-scoala-mai-sunt/en/): Pick the county and class track to see how many real course days are left until the next break and the summer holidays, in the 2026–2027 school year.
- [Decode the code on your licence](https://mariuscomper.uk/coduri-permis/en/): Type the box-12 code from the licence — 78, 01.06, 95, 96 — and see at once which restriction or right it hides, in the official legal wording.
- [Where is Romania's gold? The Moscow treasure, 1916–2024](https://mariuscomper.uk/tezaurul-de-la-moscova/en/): Two trains east in 1916–1917, three returns, none with gold. The treasure story with the protocols on the table.
- [The vote passed. Your share is still zero.](https://mariuscomper.uk/pensie-din-bursa/en/): The Chamber of Deputies adopted the CEI accounts: 262 for, one abstention. A calculator shows what a pension started at 25 is worth, in today's lei.
- [The Empty House — 1 in 4 Dwellings Stands Empty](https://mariuscomper.uk/casele-goale/en/): 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.
- [Romania Keeps Building. But For Whom?](https://mariuscomper.uk/constru-pentru-cine/en/): 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.
- [Open knowledge Romania](https://mariuscomper.uk/cunoastere-deschisa/en/): Find data, archives and tools for your next question. See who publishes them, what you can reuse and what needs a closer look.
- [If this bridge disappears](https://mariuscomper.uk/daca-podul-dispare/en/): Slobozia–Hârșova, two towns in south-east Romania: closing Giurgeni–Vadu Oii Bridge would add 59 minutes in the model. Close it on the map and follow the detour.
- [Romania needs Mangalia for a €920m naval programme. It does not control the shipyard's sale](https://mariuscomper.uk/mangalia-gate/en/): A bilingual explanation of the bankruptcy sale of Damen Shipyards Mangalia's assets, state-owned land, the SAFE contract for four vessels and creditor power.
- [The cars that don't leave](https://mariuscomper.uk/masinile-care-nu-pleaca/en/): Eight in ten cars on Romanian roads are more than 10 years old, and for every new car sold, three more arrive second-hand from the West. Why the fleet keeps aging instead of renewing — in official Romanian statistics.
- [Emptying of people, not of homes](https://mariuscomper.uk/orasul-care-se-intinde/en/): 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.
- [Which sources of pollution are in your locality? Romania’s industrial facilities map](https://mariuscomper.uk/poluare-langa-tine/en/): Search a Romanian locality for Seveso sites, IPPC installations, major polluters, air and water releases and waste transfers in official registers.
- [Not every price rise weighs the same](https://mariuscomper.uk/recontorizarea/en/): A Romanian household's basket, counted twice. Out of 1,000 dots, food is 335 by weight but drove 485 of the record 2022 inflation.
- [Sixty or Seventy](https://mariuscomper.uk/saizeci-sau-saptezeci/en/): Set Romania's retirement age to 60, and the public pension system crosses 3% of GDP by 2026. Set it to 70, and it never does through 2060. An interactive demographic engine shows why retirement age matters more than the birth rate.
- [The Anatomy of the Bribe: From Ciubuc to Parandărăt](https://mariuscomper.uk/spaga/en/): Four words, four legal regimes, one transaction: peșcheș, rusfet, ciubuc, parandărăt. Klitgaard's corruption formula and an interactive simulator of the decision to demand or pay an informal fee.
- [Type your town. See where it stands in an earthquake.](https://mariuscomper.uk/cat-de-tare/en/): Look up any of Romania's 3,181 localities in the official RTC 18-2026 seismic-hazard table and see its PGA value, national position and comparison with another locality.
- [Your village has been on four different maps](https://mariuscomper.uk/harta-judetelor-de-la-1930-la-azi/en/): Compare Romania's 1930 counties, 1938 ținuturi, 1960–1968 regions and present-day counties on one map. Search for a commune and see the four units it belonged to.
- [All the virgin forest Romania has catalogued is smaller than Bucharest](https://mariuscomper.uk/paduri-virgine/en/): A map of the 448 virgin and quasi-virgin forests in Romania's national catalogue, the eight Romanian UNESCO components, the catalogue's growth since 2016 and their legal protection.
- [A natural park's buffer zone allows clear-cutting. A national park's forbids it.](https://mariuscomper.uk/unde-se-poate-taia/en/): The law divides every Romanian national and natural park into four zones with different logging rules. The map brings together the law and the approving act for each of the 29 parks.
- [How Romanians are born](https://mariuscomper.uk/cum-se-nasc-romanii/en/): A thousand Romanian births, rearranged by the mother's age, show how the most common age group shifted from 20–24 to 30–34 between 1990 and 2022. Follow the same dots by year, birth order and county.
- [Can I pack this? UK airport liquid rules, airport by airport](https://mariuscomper.uk/can-i-pack-this/): Pick a UK airport, an item and a container size and get YES, NO or YES WITH CONDITIONS, quoted from the airport's own security page. Nine airports allow 2-litre containers, ten still stop at 100 ml. Return-journey check included.
- [Can I Bring Food into the UK?](https://mariuscomper.uk/pot-sa-aduc-mancare/en/): Pick where you are travelling from and what is in your bag to get an instant verdict: YES, NO, or YES UP TO X KG. UK rules produce counter-intuitive results: EU poultry is permitted while EU cheese and ham are banned; Indian mangoes pass freely while Turkish strawberries are seized without a plant-health certificate. Includes instant checker and 10-item customs quiz.
- [The Housing Paradox](https://mariuscomper.uk/paradoxul-locuirii/en/): Romania holds Europe’s highest homeownership rate (95.3%) alongside its most overcrowded dwellings (40.5%), with just 1.1 rooms per person. A sociological investigation into the 1990 mass privatization, mortgages melted by hyperinflation, and the concrete flat drafted as a private welfare state of last resort.
- [Romania is moving, one commune at a time](https://mariuscomper.uk/tara-care-se-muta/en/): From 1990 to 2025, Romania's National Institute of Statistics counted, for every locality, how many people registered a new address there and how many left. The map shows big cities standing still or shrinking, the communes around them growing by up to 56 per thousand a year, and several border population explosions linked to registered address changes.
- [Where do the children go to school?](https://mariuscomper.uk/unde-merg-copiii/en/): Per 100 children born in Romania between 2015 and 2019, the country has 85 primary-school pupils in the autumn of 2025: 91 in towns, 79 in communes. The map shows, for each of the 3,181 localities, how many pupils it has per 100 children born there, which children go to the next town and which towns gather them.
- [When did modernity reach your town?](https://mariuscomper.uk/modernitatea/en/): 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.
- [How old is your town?](https://mariuscomper.uk/varsta-localitatii/en/): The median age of each of Romania’s 3,181 localities, computed from the registered population by single year of age (INS, POP107D), on a map with every real boundary. Search your locality, see how old it is against the country and the county, its age fingerprint in one hundred squares, its pyramid by sex and its path from 1992 to 2026. In 528 localities there are now more registered people aged 80 or over than children under 10; in 1992 there were 9.
- [The Arithmetic of Survival: How Romania’s Parallel Economy Worked in the 1990s](https://mariuscomper.uk/bazarul-tranzitiei/en/): When the national currency lost three quarters of its purchasing power in a single year, Soviet military optics became a reserve asset and a pyramid scheme absorbed a third of the country's cash. Four physical artifacts show how households improvised capitalism before commercial banking and cable TV.
- [Ten Hours Fifty to Timișoara](https://mariuscomper.uk/noua-ore/en/): The fastest Bucharest–Timișoara train takes ten hours and fifty minutes. In 1977, over those same 533 kilometres, it took seven and a half hours; in the 1939 timetable, nine hours and seventeen minutes over a longer route.
- [Would you open the shortcut?](https://mariuscomper.uk/scurtatura/en/): Open a road in an imaginary town and see why 65 minutes can become 80. Then change the traffic until the shortcut starts to help.
- [How full is a hospital?](https://mariuscomper.uk/anul-spitalului/en/): For 198 hospitals, the published CNAS percentage can be reproduced with a 290-day denominator. Change the duration, keep patient-days fixed and inspect every record.
- [After the last tonne](https://mariuscomper.uk/dupa-ultima-tona/en/): What must keep working after a mine closes. Seven procurement notices reveal water-treatment services, while Novăț shows why a passive plant still needs maintenance.
- [One home in four](https://mariuscomper.uk/o-casa-din-patru/en/): Law 260/2008 requires a 50 or 130 lei annual policy against earthquake, flood and landslide. On 31 July 2026, 24.9% of dwellings had one. In communes, 15.3%.
- [Nine in Ten, Half the Power](https://mariuscomper.uk/noua-din-zece/en/): 90.3% of Romania's prosumers are natural persons. The same map shifts between people and installed capacity: companies are 9.7% of entries and hold 48.6% of capacity.
- [The Shadow Archipelago: Inside the Secret Military Units of Romanian Intelligence in Public Procurement](https://mariuscomper.uk/arhipelagul-din-umbra/en/): Contactless camera pulse detection (rPPG), facial micro-expressions (FACS), and psycholinguistic profiling at UM 0418, the 668M RON cyber shield at UM 0296, and the UM 0510 clinical network.
- [The Money of 1947: One Rate, Four Ceilings](https://mariuscomper.uk/banii-din-1947/en/): The monetary-reform law fixed one 20,000-to-one rate, but Article 8 produced maximum outcomes of 75, 150, 250 or 375 stabilised lei. Compare the same stack under the four legal values.
- [The Invisible Architecture of Romania's Sovereign Cloud](https://mariuscomper.uk/statul-digital/en/): Inside Romania's 136 State Databases, the Sovereign Cloud, SRI UM 0296, and the €1M Citizen Shield.
- [Estimated time](https://mariuscomper.uk/ora-estimata/en/): A nationwide audit of 131,335 positions in Romania's court hearing lists. After separating the undocumented 23:59 entries, 65.1% sit in batches of at least ten; one Buftea civil session had 341 positions at 08:30.
- [Who has the key?](https://mariuscomper.uk/adaposturi/en/): An audit of all 6,118 entries in Romania's IGSU register. Only 199 are marked public and functional, while all 225 Prahova coordinates repeat the same suspicious pattern.
- [Fully online. At the counter.](https://mariuscomper.uk/complet-online/en/): An audit of the 613 records returned by Romania's CNSP Online filter. In 502, the Available channels field named a counter and contained no online link.
- [Nine of Thirteen](https://mariuscomper.uk/noua-din-treisprezece/en/): From 2013 to 2025, the World Bank's personal remittances received indicator exceeded net foreign direct investment in nine of thirteen years. The indicator is broader than money sent by the diaspora and does not identify the sender's citizenship. The interactive balance shows both series in the same currency and time window.
- [When Parcels Overtook Letters](https://mariuscomper.uk/coletele-au-trecut/en/): In 2024, parcels and small packages overtook correspondence in Romania for the first time. Change the year and follow the two postal belts.
- [Two Railways in One Company](https://mariuscomper.uk/doua-cai-ferate/en/): Romania has formally designated Carpatica Feroviar as a peacetime military-logistics provider. Public records do not yet disclose where the defence mission ends and the commercial enterprise begins.
- [The Clay That Never Cools](https://mariuscomper.uk/lutul-londrei/en/): In 1900, the London Underground was a constant 14°C and advertised as a haven from summer heat. After 125 years of relentless braking, the surrounding clay has reached thermal saturation above 30°C, becoming a permanent subterranean radiator.
- [Who decides it’s an emergency? | AI, LLMs and Romania’s 112 system](https://mariuscomper.uk/cine-decide-urgenta/en/): Romania is buying a 112 platform with LLM components. Follow a fictional call and move the boundary between transcription, assistance, classification, priority and dispatch.
- [Bucharest Filled Up First — the ceiling on Romania's license plates](https://mariuscomper.uk/placute/en/): Every county code has a fixed ceiling: 1,422,234 possible plates. Bucharest reached it in January 2010 and quietly switched to three digits. Sixteen years later, no other county has passed 30% of the same ceiling — except one, which is growing differently. Look up your county on the dashboard.
- [The Screens Gathered in the City — Romania's Cinemas, 1990–2024](https://mariuscomper.uk/ecranele-la-oras/en/): Romania had 4,637 cinemas and mobile cinema units in 1990. Today there are 107. But the number of seats fell only 2.8-fold, not 43-fold — the small village halls and traveling units closed first. Search your county.
- [One leu below the line](https://mariuscomper.uk/sub-prag/en/): An interactive ruler for Romania's direct-purchase thresholds and the values that gather around them in the SICAP register.
- [At noon, a quarter is sun](https://mariuscomper.uk/teancul/en/): In summer 2025, at 13:00, the sun held 24.5% of the electricity generated in Romania. At 21:00 the share was zero. Evening hydro was 2.4 times midday hydro. Move the hour on the stack.
- [The Minister Reads It First](https://mariuscomper.uk/ministrul-citeste-primul/en/): Trace France's prior-declaration and ministerial-review process for works by current agents of its six specialised intelligence services and former agents for ten years after they leave. The explainer includes an interactive test for the statutory ground covering unclassified operational methods.
- [An Emergency That Keeps Coming Back: Karate Zeon's Eight-Year Run](https://mariuscomper.uk/calendarul-de-120-de-zile/en/): The database contains eight distinct German authorisations for Karate Zeon with the same strict product, crop-code and pest-code combination, one in every year from 2016 to 2023. Each window lasts exactly 120 days.
- [Taiwan Turned the Tax Receipt into a Lottery Ticket](https://mariuscomper.uk/loteria-bonurilor/en/): In 1951, Taiwan tied each eligible Uniform Invoice number to a prize draw, giving shoppers a reason to demand the tax document. Nominal business-tax revenue rose from over NT$29 million to over NT$51 million in the reform's first year; a two-year comparison cannot isolate the lottery's effect.
- [Close in the data, far on the map.](https://mariuscomper.uk/romania-fara-judete/en/): Find your commune or town and compare three places in other counties with a similar profile. An atlas of 3,181 localities grouped using ten indicators of population, housing, employment, land and budgets.
- [Unified Romanian Passenger Rail GTFS Archive](https://mariuscomper.uk/gtfs-feroviar/en/): The planned rail timetable of Romania's seven operators, built on Vasile Coțovanu's open GTFS feed: 2,103 trips defined in the timetable (1,835 run on Monday 7 September 2026), 1,695 stations, a departures board, a map and downloads as GTFS, SQLite and GeoJSON.
- [How Romania's tourism breathes](https://mariuscomper.uk/respiratia-turistica/en/): 712 localities, each with its own tourist year traced month by month from INS TEMPO data, 2023-2025. Nearly a third of all reported nights in Romania fall in July and August alone, yet a clustering algorithm separates localities most cleanly into just two shapes of year: a nearly season-free group (597 localities, including the ski resorts) and a coast-dominated one (115 localities).
- [Atlas of Medical Deserts](https://mariuscomper.uk/deserturi-medicale/en/): Doctors, family doctors, dentists, pharmacies and hospital beds per 10,000 residents, for each of Romania's 3,181 localities, today and twenty years ago. Doctors per 10,000 residents rose from 21.2 in 2004 to 34.0 in 2024, but towns have 56.4 and communes only 5.8; 315 localities lost their last doctor, and 566 have never had a pharmacy or a hospital.
- [When distance to the hospital starts to matter](https://mariuscomper.uk/aproape-de-spital/en/): For each of Romania's 3,181 localities, 2014-2022 mortality (adjusted for age and urban/rural mix) compared with the real distance to the nearest functioning hospital. Only 1.1% of the population lives more than 30 kilometres from a hospital, and mortality stays nearly flat out to 15 kilometres — but several towns that do have their own hospital, mostly former mining towns, have mortality up to 54% above expectations.
- [Is there anyone you could ask for help?](https://mariuscomper.uk/ai-pe-cineva/en/): The European survey on income and living conditions asks, every few years, whether you have a relative, friend or neighbour outside your household you could ask for help. In 2022, 293 people in 1,000 in Romania said no — the highest share of the 33 countries; the Union average is 112 and Norway's is 24. A few questions later in the same interview, Romania gives the Union's highest rating for trust in other people. The reader answers the question first, then sees where the answer falls. The shortfall does not gather in one group: Romania's richest fifth is worse off than the Union's poorest fifth.
- [Where the asphalt ends](https://mariuscomper.uk/unde-se-termina-asfaltul/en/): Romania has 87,220 km of public road, and 20,959 of them are gravel or bare earth. Almost all sit on the local network: 99.4% of the unsurfaced kilometres are county or communal roads, where the share is 30.2%, against 0.7% on national roads. A county map, the four surface classes year by year since 2000, and the streets of 319 towns.
- [DGPI's security lab, lot by lot](https://mariuscomper.uk/cu-ce-testeaza-mai/en/): All ten lots awarded for DGPI's security-testing laboratory, with products named in the tender, suppliers, award values and the limits of the public record.
- [Romania, last in EU road deaths](https://mariuscomper.uk/linia-de-sosire/en/): Romania has, again, the EU's highest road death rate. But over 25 years, no other member state has cut its rate by less. The race toward zero, year by year, 27 countries.
- [Romania's direct public purchases and Benford's law](https://mariuscomper.uk/prima-cifra/en/): Nearly 600,000 direct purchases each quarter follow Benford's law, while the legal cap remains clear in the amounts. SEAP data from 2022–2024 shows what the method can tell us, plus a tool for checking your own numbers.
- [The shortage has a shape | Romania labour map](https://mariuscomper.uk/romania-labour-map/): Romania's labour shortage is a set of matching failures. A source-backed map of skills, care, place, formal work and migration.
- [The state has birthdays](https://mariuscomper.uk/the-cliff-at-18/): At 18, 21 and 25, support can change sharply for care leavers. Vulnerability does not disappear on schedule.
- [Second in hives, seventh in concentration](https://mariuscomper.uk/stupii-din-mijloc/en/): Romania has 1.7 million beehives, second place in the European Union. But hives per holding — the real measure of how concentrated an apiculture sector is — puts it mid-table, almost tied with Italy. Greece, with 31% fewer hives, holds nearly double.
- [A Year and a Half](https://mariuscomper.uk/un-an-si-jumatate/en/): Thirty-two years for a hundred and fourteen kilometres of motorway, between 1972 and 2004. At the pace of the last six years, those same kilometres would now take under eighteen months.
- [Vatra](https://mariuscomper.uk/vatra/en/): 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.
- [Tezaur or Fidelis](https://mariuscomper.uk/tezaur-sau-fidelis/en/): Every Tezaur and Fidelis coupon from 2026, measured against inflation, and a net-return calculator after tax (zero) and inflation — plus four older, already-matured bonds tracked against inflation that actually happened.
- [Two in Seven — the public holidays that land on a weekend](https://mariuscomper.uk/doua-din-sapte/en/): Romania writes more public holidays into law than any other EU country, seventeen of them. On average five a year land on a Saturday or a Sunday. Compare twenty-eight national calendars and see what one rule would change.
- [Spectacular railway tunnels and viaducts – map](https://mariuscomper.uk/tuneluri-feroviare/en/): Map of Romania's railway tunnels and viaducts: Teliu, Caracău, Oravița–Anina, the Jiu Gorge and the Ormeniș and Homorod works.
- [Where tap water comes from in Romania’s major cities](https://mariuscomper.uk/de-unde-vine-apa/en/): Interactive investigation of drinking water origins across Romania’s 10 major cities: surface reservoirs, karst aquifers, 100+ km aqueducts, hardness, and glass chemistry.
- [Old Romanian Lei to New Lei – ROL to RON Converter & Monetary Memory](https://mariuscomper.uk/lei-vechi-lei-noi/en/): 10 million old Romanian lei = 1,000 RON. Convert millions, billions, or any historical amount from ROL to RON instantly and explore why Romanians still speak in “milioane”.
- [Registering a political party: Romania's rule today, the 2026 AEP draft and 13 other countries · The Party Gate](https://mariuscomper.uk/poarta-partidului/en/): How a party is registered: today's rule, the AEP draft of 21 August 2026 (100 founders, decision by AEP, dissolution for inactivity) and 13 other countries, with the articles and time limits. Situation at 2 October 2026.
- [Was Romania invented in Paris? The treaty of 1856](https://mariuscomper.uk/paris-1856/en/): The articles that unmade a protectorate and started a union. Read the treaty, then the portraits.
- [The trial that convicted an empire: the 1892 Memorandum](https://mariuscomper.uk/memorandul-1892/en/): 300 delegates in Vienna, an unopened envelope, 14 convictions in Cluj: the petition that lost in court and won in Europe's press.
- [The 1907 revolt: how many died — and who counted?](https://mariuscomper.uk/rascoala-1907/en/): Flămânzi 8 February, the March wave, the April fire. A week-by-week spread map and the weighing of the numbers: where the 11,000 dead come from.
- [The year 1848: three countries, one summer — Iași, Blaj, Islaz](https://mariuscomper.uk/anul-1848/en/): At Iași they petitioned the prince, at Blaj the nation gathered, at Islaz a new country was proclaimed: 35, 16 and 22 points face to face, on one map.
- [Did Caragiale say it — or a minister? 1852–1912](https://mariuscomper.uk/caragiale/en/): The 1884 Letter, 158 days after the real revision. Mitică’s Bucharest mapped, and the quote game: Caragiale or the politician?
- [How 1,228 delegates united a country in one day](https://mariuscomper.uk/alba-iulia-1918/en/): 1 December 1918: 1,228 credentials, the nine-article Resolution, and over 100,000 people in the cold. The delegations map, the credential journey, and the answers from Cluj and Mediaș.
- [Trianon 1920: how the border with Hungary was drawn](https://mariuscomper.uk/trianon-1920/en/): The border with Hungary runs a few kilometres from the Satu Mare–Oradea railway, in places under one kilometre: the 1920 journey, station by station, then the road from the 1916 promise to the signature in the Grand Trianon.
- [Who gave the peasants land? 1864](https://mariuscomper.uk/improprietarirea-1864/en/): The 2 May coup, the plebiscite and the August rural law: 406,429 dependent peasants endowed by oxen category — fruntași, mijlocași, codași — redeemed until 1884.
- [How did our anthem wait 142 years? 1848–1990](https://mariuscomper.uk/imnul-1848/en/): “Un răsunet” at Brașov in June 1848, six official anthems, two bans and 24 January 1990: the song that waited 142 years.
- [The night Cuza left: 11 February 1866](https://mariuscomper.uk/noaptea-lui-cuza/en/): Eight officers enter the palace at 5 a.m., the abdication is signed, and by dawn three lieutenants rule. 6 stations from evening to dawn.
- [The Hour the State Loses](https://mariuscomper.uk/ora-decesului/en/): A doctor writes the hour of death by hand, on every certificate, every time. Three steps later, on the civil-status record issued through SIIEASC, the hour is gone. The National Institute of Statistics has never published it. What is known instead.
- [The Danube at low water, 1840–2026: how often the river has been this low](https://mariuscomper.uk/danube-water-energy/en/): Daily Danube flow at Orșova since 1840, 183 years: between June and September no day had fallen under 1,440 m³/s. In 2026, INHGA bulletins give 1,300 in August and 1,250 in September. Enter a flow from the news and see how often the river has been that low.
- [Barcelona’s 2028 Airbnb question](https://mariuscomper.uk/barcelona-airbnb-2028/en/): 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.
- [Romania's GDP, quarter by quarter, 2020–2026: the first figure INS published and the current one](https://mariuscomper.uk/ultima-noapte-pib/en/): INS publishes the first GDP figure 45 days after the quarter. By the second provisional version the median difference is 0.1 percentage points; in the current series it is 0.3 for 2023–Q1 2026 and 1.2 for Q1 2020–2022. For five of 25 quarters the sign was reversed, among them Q1 and Q2 2024.
- [More Women Graduate. From What?](https://mariuscomper.uk/mai-multe-absolvente/en/): In 2024, women were the majority of tertiary graduates in the EU. Change the denominator to see where the difference between fields sits.
- [In the school register, the unknown takes four out of five rows](https://mariuscomper.uk/in-ceata/en/): A verifiable reading of Romania's official register of school buildings and seismic-risk classes. What is classified, what is not, and what changed between 2023 and 2026.
- [The water that never arrives](https://mariuscomper.uk/apa-care-nu-ajunge/en/): Of every 100 litres entering regional operators' networks, 50 do not generate revenue. ANRSC data on water losses, access and connection.
- [Rent control: who gets the next key?](https://mariuscomper.uk/urmatoarea-cheie/en/): An explainer about the real gain for protected tenants and the cost rent control can shift onto people looking for the next home.
- [Policy at Your Doorstep · which UK policies meet at this postcode](https://mariuscomper.uk/doorstep/): A UK postcode sits in a council, a health board, a network region and a flood map that do not share a border. Type yours and see which recent policies reach that street.
- [England's 2026 drought: one of the wettest winters, then one of the driest summers in 190 years of rainfall records](https://mariuscomper.uk/uk-water/en/): Winter 2025–26 was the 6th wettest of 190 years in Met Office data, and summer 2026 the 4th driest. Each year is a dot: winter rain says nothing about the next summer (correlation −0.01), and 2026 is the only year in the corner with a wet winter and a dry summer. Over 12 months, rainfall was close to average.
- [The cause we couldn't name](https://mariuscomper.uk/the-cause-we-couldnt-name/en/): A reading of recorded causes of death in Romania from 2018 to 2022. How many identify the disease that began the chain, and how many leave the question open?
- [Romanian villages left without a school, 2013–2026](https://mariuscomper.uk/trei-din-patru/en/): Of 6,833 villages with a school on the Ministry of Education's 2013–14 list, 1,329 have none in 2025–26. A map of every village over 13 years, and why the official count of rural schools (−76%) does not mean as many schools closed.
- [The Average Isn't Employed Anywhere](https://mariuscomper.uk/media-nu-lucreaza/en/): In 2025, net pay across Romania's 19 economic sectors ranged from 3,368 to 10,801 lei. The national average of 5,536 lei describes none of them.
- [One small sale. Many national registers.](https://mariuscomper.uk/ppwr-voices/en/): What 4,946 people and businesses wrote about national packaging registers, costs and cross-border trade.
- [Four point nine five](https://mariuscomper.uk/nota-cinci/en/): At Romania's 2024 baccalaureate, the most frequently awarded grade was exactly 5.00. The step below, 4.95, was given almost eight times less often. Search any grade and see what happened at second marking.
- [The Border Moved to the Provider](https://mariuscomper.uk/frontiera-la-furnizor/en/): A stored message stays in place, but the judicial request changes route. Choose the order, urgency and data to see the deadlines, second-state notification and safeguards that remain.
- [Bektashi, between a spiritual centre and a proposed state](https://mariuscomper.uk/bektashi/en/): The Bektashi headquarters in Tirana exists, a diplomatic status was requested, a sovereign state is only proposed: no public act up to 2 October 2026. From Hacıbektaş to Tirana, Sarı Saltuk's tomb at Babadag and the real area: 27 acres, almost 11 hectares.
- [Where do Romania's airports fly? Every airport's destinations, 2001–2024](https://mariuscomper.uk/panoul-de-plecari/en/): The destinations of every Romanian airport, 2001–2024, from Eurostat. Luton has been the country's top destination since 2015. Pick an airport and a year and read the departures board; every airport has its own page with all its routes.
- [Before the S-wave](https://mariuscomper.uk/inainte-de-unda-s/en/): An earthquake warning is not a countdown to evacuation. It is a window for actions already decided, and a lesson in the different records that describe a building.
- [A day on the rails — Romania's train graph](https://o-zi-pe-sine.mariuscomper.uk/en/): An interactive atlas of Romania's planned passenger-rail timetable for 2025–2026: every line is a train and time runs left to right.
- [The Licence, County by County](https://permisul.mariuscomper.uk/en/): First-attempt driving-test results across all Romanian counties from 2018 to 2025: map, trends, comparisons and the limits of public crash data.
- [Who can stop a public system before the attacker does?](https://mariuscomper.uk/stat-digital/en/): Why unsafe public digital services can remain online: a selected incident timeline, a map of institutional responsibility, the rules already in force and a practical remediation plan.
- [A Field Guide to Useful Monsters](https://useful-monsters.mariuscomper.uk/): A browser puzzle-adventure about creatures that embody Goodhart's law, responsibility diffusion, administrative burden, sunk cost and commons tragedies.
- [The Bureau of Unfinished Futures](https://bureau.mariuscomper.uk/): A browser game about reconstructing six plausible failed futures, diagnosing why their institutions collapsed and negotiating alternatives that might endure.
- [The Ministry of Small Miracles](https://small-miracles.mariuscomper.uk/): A civic investigation game about reading evidence, mapping hidden systems and testing interventions through their second-order consequences.
- [Avoidable death](https://moartea-evitabila.mariuscomper.uk/en/): In 2023 Romania recorded the EU's highest standardised treatable mortality rate: 199.7 against an EU average of 86.8 per 100,000 inhabitants under 75.
- [What this hour costs](https://cat-costa-ora-asta.mariuscomper.uk/en/): A live dial that converts Romania's import-export balance and day-ahead price into a reference value for the current hour's exchange.
- [A Tenth of a Point Can Decide Who Gets AFCN Funding](https://afcn-cine-castiga.mariuscomper.uk/en/): A bilingual analysis of 357 AFCN projects: tight thresholds, title language, applicant experience and geographic concentration in the comparable 2021–2026 series, before the new funding regime from 2027.
- [Romania at 2.43% · 15th on NATO's Table](https://nato-defence-2026.mariuscomper.uk/en/): A bilingual briefing from NATO's 2014–2026 tables: Romania's defence baseline, ranking, trajectory, eastern flank, The Hague and Ankara.
- [How Small Is Too Small?](https://mvs-praguri-milei.mariuscomper.uk/en/): An interactive explainer about Javier Milei's Minimum Viable Scale paper and the threshold at which an economy can take off.
- [Every Pothole Has a Price](https://rugozitate-rutiera.mariuscomper.uk/en/): An interactive explainer based on a US study that turns road roughness into an estimated annual cost for drivers.
- [The City That Learns Before the Next Storm](https://clima-urbana-bucuresti.mariuscomper.uk/en/): An interactive matrix about heat, storms, extreme rain and the data that can guide Bucharest's response.
- [Day Three After the Earthquake](https://mariuscomper.uk/ziua-a-treia/en/): Bucharest has a plan for earthquake day, but not for the year after.
- [A City with Two Housing Policies](https://housing-scarcity.mariuscomper.uk/en/): How cities can finance affordable housing while planning preserves scarcity: four tools, political incentives and later evidence.
- [Before the baby, a promise with no guarantee](https://inainte-de-copil.mariuscomper.uk/en/): Claudia Goldin argues that part of low fertility is a credible commitment problem: women's autonomy advanced faster than the sharing of family work.
- [France in the Making of Modern Romania](https://franta-romania.mariuscomper.uk/en/): A documentary history of Romanian initiative and French leverage in bringing the cause of the Principalities into European politics, from 1848 to 1859 and beyond the Union.
- [The Romanian Alphabet in 26 (?) Issues](https://alfabetul.mariuscomper.uk/en/): Thirty-one letters each carry a verified statistic about Romania, spanning alcohol, migration, education, health and infrastructure.
- [Barcelona, Neighbourhood by Neighbourhood](https://barcelonabarri.mariuscomper.uk/en/): A living atlas of Barcelona's 73 official neighbourhoods, with maps, profiles, comparisons, stories and routes through the city's layers.
- [The ANCPI cyberattack: what is confirmed and what works now](https://mariuscomper.uk/ancpi-atac/en/): DNSC’s interim analysis confirms extensive compromise of ANCPI infrastructure: 1,083 inventoried virtual machines, exposed OpenDJ data, source code and credentials, and the transfer of an Active Directory controller disk. Reports on 2 September about a DNSC material identify an old OpenAM version and more than 86 hours before detection; ANCPI says the material is not the final technical report.
- [The Reasons of Power: A Philosophical Exploration](https://motivele-puterii.mariuscomper.uk/en/): How we read stated reasons when an official or institution can harm others: an interactive essay on sincerity, internal review and public responsibility.
- [Romania’s Planning Code: which rules apply to your land or file](https://mariuscomper.uk/codurbanism/en/): Which rules, forms and deadlines apply to your land or file since 25 August 2026: 100 comparisons with the old laws, 27 practical answers, 22 tracked implementation items, 14 special regimes and a tool for files in transition.
- [Same Ballots, Three Winners](https://mariuscomper.uk/aceleasi-buletine/en/): The same nine ballots elect three different winners when only the counting rule changes.
- [Before you take a job in Romania, check what is written down.](https://mariuscomper.uk/work-romania/en/): An independent, source-linked guide for workers recruited from Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka: what Romanian authorities say, what to verify, what to preserve, and where uncertainty remains.
- [Two years to build an AI data centre, five for a power plant](https://mariuscomper.uk/doua-ceasuri/en/): AI data centres that came online in 2025: a median 24 months from land clearing to first building (Epoch AI). US power plants that year: 31 months from the grid agreement and 61 from the request (Berkeley Lab).
- [The cyberattack everyone detected and nobody saw](https://mariuscomper.uk/acro-cyber-attack/): A forensic explainer of the ACRO compromises: the attacker moved, the sensors saw it, and the handoff to accountable action failed.
- [The World Underneath](https://mariuscomper.uk/world-underneath/en/): An interactive atlas of the infrastructures, standards, markets and institutions beneath ordinary life, from electricity and water to payments, the internet and medicine.
- [Who sees, who decides?](https://mariuscomper.uk/cine-vede-cine-decide/en/): A reconstruction of China’s banking reform: what changes when the supervisor who sees the case also receives the right to decide.
- [Romania's constitutions, 1866–1991 — What each regime kept](https://mariuscomper.uk/constitutii-romania-1866-1991/en/): A comparator of articles from Romania's six constitutions, 1866–1991: property, rights and the organisation of powers, with quotations, verdicts and sources.
- [How many airports does Romania have? Map of all 17 (2025)](https://mariuscomper.uk/aeroporturi-romania/en/): Romania has 17 airports in its passenger traffic statistics. See them on a map, ranked by 2025 passengers, and find the airport nearest to your town.
- [Money, explained](https://mariuscomper.uk/bani/en/): What happens to money kept at home, in the bank or in shares, on real Romanian data: inflation, compound interest, ETFs, 2026 taxes. Plus a 23-term glossary with calculators.
- [Would Tarnița-Lăpuștești make money in Romania? A test on real market data](https://mariuscomper.uk/tarnita/en/): A transparent model on OPCOM day-ahead prices tests how much energy arbitrage Tarnița-Lăpuștești could have captured and what share of annual cost the modelled revenues leave uncovered.
- [Pe datorie: Romania's public money, 1995–2025](https://mariuscomper.uk/pe-datorie/en/): Romania's public money, 1995–2025: spending per 100 lei collected, the deficit, interest against Poland, Hungary and the EU average, governments on one timeline, the EU excessive deficit procedure and the sovereign rating. With a game: build your own deficit package from the 14 real 2025 measures.
- [How many pension years will you get? Retirement-age calculator with the years left](https://mariuscomper.uk/ani-de-pensie/en/): Enter your birth month and find your retirement month under Law 360/2023, the years after it and how many are free of limitations — on Romania's 2024 life tables, with a wall of bricks for all your years.
- [The palace that does not fit in a photo](https://mariuscomper.uk/palatul-parlamentului/en/): On Arsenal Hill stands a building 270 by 245 metres — 84 above ground, 16 below, 365,000 square metres — that Guinness calls “believed to be” the heaviest in the world. Raise it floor by floor, in schematic 3D, then unpick the numbers: which are official, which merely circulate.
- [România ta: 3,181 Romanian communes and towns in nine numbers (the sea, earthquakes, mountains in view, hospital, first mention)](https://mariuscomper.uk/romania-ta/en/): Type a Romanian town or village and see nine computed numbers, each from a different project: the sea, the earthquake design value, mountains in view, the nearest hospital, airport and castle, the first written mention, where the ground lay 100 million years ago, and your antipode.

## Sources

- [Eurostat: Annual government finance statistics](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/product/view/gov_10a_main)
- [Portalul datelor publice din România](https://data.gov.ro/)
- [SICAP — achiziții publice](https://www.e-licitatie.ro/pub)