Vlachs
Vlachs (also called
Wlachs, Wallachs, Olahs) are the Romanized population in
Central and
Eastern Europe, including Romanians, Aromanians, Istro-Romanians and Megleno-Romanians, but since the creation of the Romanian state, this term was mostly used for the Vlachs living south of the
Danube river.
They are descendants of the Roman
colonists or of the Romanized Dacian,
Thracian and
Illyrian local population (see
Origin of Romanians for more about the dispute about the origin).
The origin of the name is
Germanic: the same origin led to the words
Welsh and
Walloons in other parts of
Europe.
Slavic peoples initially used the name Vlachs when referring to Romanic peoples in general. Later on, the meaning got narrower or just different. For example
Italy in
Polish is called Włochy. In
English,
Wallachia is the name given to a part of their original territory.
 |
| Map of Balkans with regions inhabited by Romanians/Vlachs highlighted |
Romanians (also known as
Daco-Romanians, speaking
Romanian language) are living in\n*
Romania - 20.5 millions\n*
Moldova - 2.8 millions\nand as a minority in\n*
Ukraine - 500,000; in Southern
Bessarabia and Northern
Bukovina\n*
Serbia and Montenegro - 75,000 (38,809 in
Vojvodina -2% of the province population)\n*
Bulgaria - 20,000\n*
Hungary - 70,000 (0.7% of the total population)\n*
Slovakia - 9,000
Aromanians (speaking
Macedoromanian language) are living as a minority in:\n*Northern
Greece - between 700,000 and 1,200,000; mainly in the Pindus Mountains\n:
Note: the Greek government does not recognise any ethnic divisions, so there are no exact statistics. See Demographics of Greece.\n*
Republic of Macedonia - 9,695 (0.5% of the total population) \n*
Albania - between 100,000 and 400,000\n*
Romania - about 50,000; mostly in
Dobruja\n*
Bulgaria
Megleno-Romanians (speaking
Megleno-Romanian language) are living in the
Greek province of Meglen, with a population of 12,000.
Istro-Romanians (speaking
Istro-Romanian language) are living in
Croatia, with a population of less than 1,000.
Religion
The religion of the Vlachs is predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but there are some regions where they are Catholics and Protestants (in Transylvania) and a few are even Muslims (in some regions of Greece and in the European part of Turkey).
See also:
External links
