Dobrudja

Dobrudja (variously spelt Dobruja, Dobrudscha, or better, Dobrutchia), the south-eastern portion of Roumania, between the lower Danube and the Black Sea, transferred to the kingdom by the Berlin Congress of 1878, which fixed the southern limit at a line from Silistria on the Danube to Mangalia on the sea-coast. The north-east of this region is occupied by marshes and the delta of the Danube; the rest mostly a treeless steppe, too dry for farming, on which large herds of cattle, horses, and sheep are raised. The climate is malarious and unwholesome, and the inhabitants are a feeble folk. Roumanians and Bulgarians are the most numerous; many of the immigrant Circassians formerly settled here. Tartars and Turks having since 1878 gone to Turkish territory. There are some 16,000 Turks still, with 15,000 Russians, and a number of German colonists. A railway traverses the district. Area, 6102 sq. m.; pop. 196,943.