Hungarian Autonomous Province

Magyar Autonomous Region Regiunea Autonomă Maghiară Magyar Autonóm Tartomány
Autonomous region of the People's Republic of Romania
1952–1968
Magyar Autonomous Region (1952–1960: yellow and brown) Mureș-Magyar Autonomous Region (1960–1968: yellow and green).
Capital		Târgu Mureș
History
•	Established	1952
•	Disestablished	1968
Today part of		Romania

The Magyar Autonomous Region (1952-1960) (Romanian: Regiunea Autonomă Maghiară, Hungarian: Magyar Autonóm Tartomány) and Mureș-Magyar Autonomous Region (1960-1968) were autonomous regions in the People's Republic of Romania (later the Socialist Republic of Romania).

In 1950, Romania adopted a Soviet-style administrative and territorial division of the country into regions and raions (until then, Romania had been divided into judeţe or counties).

Two years later, in 1952, under Soviet pressure, the number of regions was reduced and by comprising ten raions from the former Mureș Region and from the Stalin Region (both of them created in 1950), of the territory inhabited by a compact population of Székely Hungarians, a new region called the Magyar Autonomous Region was created. According to the 1956 census, the total population of the region was 731,361, distributed among the ethnic groups as follows: Hungarians (77.3%), Romanians (20.1%), Roma (1.5%), Germans (0.4%) and Jews (0.4%). The official languages of the province were Hungarian and Romanian and the provincial administrative centre was Târgu Mureș (Marosvásárhely).

Its status laid out in the 1952 Constitution, the region encompassed about a third of Romania's Hungarians, the rest living either in more Romanian areas or along the border with Hungary, where an ethnic-based region might have stoked fears of irredentism and security concerns. In practice, the region's status differed in no way from that of the other seventeen regions and it did not enjoy autonomy of any kind– laws, decisions and directives from the centre were rendered compulsory by the very constitution that created it, and the State Council of the Autonomous Region was merely a façade. The Region's only distinguishing features were that most of its officials were Hungarian, the Hungarian language could be used in administration and the courts, and bilingual signs were put up on public buildings. Moreover, the specifically Hungarian wing of the Romanian Communist Party was abolished in 1953, ending any mechanism for defending of the Hungarian minority's collective rights.

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