Moldova (region of Romania)

Moldavia Moldova  (Romanian)
Historical region of Romania
Map of Romania with region Moldavia in yellow
Country	Romania
Area
• Total	46,173 km2 (17,827 sq mi)
Population (2011)
• Total	4,178,694
• Density	91/km2 (230/sq mi)
Demonym(s)	Moldavian
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)

Western Moldavia (Romanian: Moldova) (also called Moldavia or Romanian Moldavia) is the historic and geographical part of the former Principality of Moldavia situated in eastern and north-eastern Romania. Until its union with Wallachia in 1859, the Principality of Moldavia also included, at various times in its history, the regions of Bessarabia (with the Budjak), all of Bukovina, and Hertza; the larger part of the former is nowadays the independent state of Moldova, while the rest of it, the northern part of Bukovina, and Hertza form territories of Ukraine.

The Romanian region itself consists of eight counties, spanning over 19% of Romania's territory. Most of Moldavia (6 out of 8 counties) is part of the Nord-Est development region, while the two southern counties are located in Sud-Est development region.

The delimitation of the Moldavian dialect, as with all other Romanian dialects, is made primarily by analyzing its phonetic features and only marginally by morphological, syntactical, and lexical characteristics.

The Moldavian dialect is the representative of the northern grouping of Romanian dialects and has influenced the Romanian spoken over large areas of Transylvania.

The Moldavian and the Wallachian dialects are the only two that have been consistently identified and recognized by linguists. They are clearly distinct in dialect classifications made by Heimann Tiktin, Mozes Gaster, Gustav Weigand, Sextil Pușcariu, Sever Pop, Emil Petrovici, Romulus Todoran, Ion Coteanu, Alexandru Philippide, Iorgu Iordan, Emanuel Vasiliu, and others, whereas the other dialects have been considerably more controversial and difficult to classify.

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Wikipedia