A high plateau, Transylvania is separated in the S from Walachia by the Transylvanian Alps and in the E from Moldavia and Bukovina by the Carpathian Mts. In the north and west Transylvania borders on Crisana-Maramures and in the SW on the Banat. Economically and culturally one of the most advanced regions of Romania, Transylvania is rich in mineral resources, notably lignite, iron, lead, manganese, gold, copper, natural gas, salt, and sulfur. There are large iron and steel, chemical, and textile industries. Stock raising, agriculture, wine production, and fruit growing are important occupations.
Timber is another valuable resource.
Sizable Hungarian and German minorities, as well as Gypsies, live in Transylvania. The area now constituting Transylvania became part of the Roman Empire in A.D. 107. The Magyar tribes first entered the region in the 5th cent., but they did not fully control it until 1003, when King Stephen I placed it under the Hungarian crown. It is not known, however, whether they came into Transylvania with or before the Magyars. In the 12th and 13th cent.