Drobeta-Turnu Severin

Drobeta-Turnu Severin (pronunciation: /dro'be.ta 'tur.nu se.ve'rin/, Hungarian: Szörényvár) is a city in Mehedinţi County, Oltenia, Romania, on the left bank of the Danube, below the Iron Gates.

Population

• 1900: 18,628
• 2003:104,557

History

The village, which was originally called Drobetae by the Romans took its later name of Turnu Severin, or the Northern Tower, from a tower built by the Byzantines which stood on a small hill surrounded by a deep fosse. This was built to commemorate a victory over the Gauls and Marcomanni, by the Roman emperor Severus (222-235). Near Turnu Severin are the remains of the celebrated Trajan's bridge, the largest in the Roman Empire, built in 103 by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus. The Danube is about 1200 metres (4000 feet) broad at this spot. The bridge was composed of twenty arches supported by stone pillars, only two are still visible at low water.

After the retreat of the Roman administration from Dacia, the city was preserved under the Roman occupation, as the bridge head in the north bank of the Danube (centuries IV-VI). Destroyed by Huns in the V-th century, the city was rebuilt by Justinian I (527-565). In the Middle Ages, the city changed its name to Turnu Severin, which signifies the tower or the north walled city (situated on the northern bank of the Danube), and became the political center of the Banat of Severin (XIII-th century). The city was claimed and possessed successively by the Magyar king and the Wallachia voivode, and was possessed by the Turkish in 1524. Once under Turkish occupation, the territory's administration moved to the west of Oltenia and was central in Cerneti. After the Danube was saved from the Turkish control (as a consequence of the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829), it was decided to build the present city, with a rigorous project (1836), then of the harbor (1858). The building of some industrial factories determined the redevelopment of the city.

The city grew on multiple levels (economical, urban and social), and in 1972 received the name of Drobeta Turnu Severin. In 1992 the first documentary mention of the city, 1870 years earlier, was celebrated.