Transylvania, now the easternmost part of Hungary, fenced N., E., and S. by the Carpathians, is mainly a plateau crossed by numerous mountain-chains, and drained by the tributaries of the Theiss and the Pruth. The soil is fertile; and salt, gold, silver, copper, quicksilver, iron, and lead are wrought. Of the population (2,084,048 in 1880, and 2,247,049 in 1890) 55 per cent. are cattle-breeding
Roumanians or Wallachians of the Greek Church. More important are the Hungarians, 29 per cent., farmers and Roman Catholics or Unitarians; the Szeklers retain many characteristics of the old Magyars. The Germans or Saxons, 10 per cent., farm, grow fruit and wine, and are mostly Protestants. There are nearly 50,000 Gypsies, some of them settled; 20,000 Jews, petty dealers and brandy distillers; Greeks and Armenians, the mercantile class; and Slavs. Kronstadt, Klausenburg, and Hermannstadt are the principal towns. Transylvania, the Roman Dacia (q.v.), was successively overrun by Ostrogoths, Gepidæ, Petchenegs, and Magyars (11th century). The 13th century brought German colonists to mix with Romano-Dacians and Magyars (Szeklers). From the land being divided into seven administrative divisions it acquired the name of Siebenbürgen—the Seven Strong Towns. In the 16th century the woiwode of Transylvania, John Zapolya (see HUNGARY), asserted his independence of the emperor; and till the end of the 17th century the princes of Transylvania even regarded the sultan as their suzerain. During the first half of the 19th century the Hungarian elements of the population strove to promote a closer union with Hungary, and at the same time stoutly asserted the ancient rights of which the people of Transylvania (except the Roumanians) had been gradually deprived by the imperial governors. The Roumanians, too, petitioned very earnestly for the same political rights as the Magyars, Szeklers, and Saxons enjoyed. These various conflicting claims resulted in 1848 in a fierce racial war, in which General Bem, acting in conjunction with the Hungarians, for some time successfully withstood the forces of the emperor (the Austrians), the Russians, and the Roumanian levies. After hostilities had ceased in 1849 Transylvania was made a crown-land of the Austrian empire, its ancient rights being restored to it eleven years later. But in 1867-68 the Hungarian party effected the complete union of the country with Hungary, and since then it has been 'Magyarised' apace.
See E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest (1888); C. Boner, Transylvania (1865); Josef Haltrich, Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbürger Sachsen (ed. J. Wolf, Vienna, 1885); and Siebenbürgisch-Deutsche Volksbücher (3 vols. 1885), by Fr. Müller, Haltrich, and Fr. Fronius.