Avram Iancu, Bihor

For other uses, see Avram Iancu (disambiguation).

Avram Iancu
Commune
The Church in Avram Iancu The Church in Avram Iancu
Commune Avram Iancu within Bihor County Commune Avram Iancu within Bihor County
Avram Iancu Location within Romania
Coordinates:
Country	Romania
County	Bihor County
Commune	Avram Iancu
Historic region	Transylvania
Government
• Mayor	Teodor-Liviu Matica (National Liberal Party)
Area	82,16 km2 (3,172 sq mi)
Population (2002)	3,317
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)

Avram Iancu (until 1932 Chemenfoc, from 1932 to 1954 Regina Maria, from 1954 to 1956 Crişana; German: Kemmen; Hungarian: Keményfok) is a commune in Bihor county, in the western part of Transylvania, Romania. The commune is composed of three villages: Ant (Ant), Avram Iancu and Tămaşda (Tamáshida). The majority of the population (96%) in Avram Iancu village is Romanian. Overall, the commune is 74.7% Romanian, 15.6% Roma and 9.6% Hungarian. The architecture of the commune is typical for a Romanian field village: the main street traverses the village, houses being equally distributed along it.

Location

Geographically, it is situated at the border of Bihor County with Arad County, and Hungary, at exactly the same distance (60 km) from the capital cities of the two counties, Oradea and Arad. The commune is crossed by the European road E671. The nearest city is Salonta, at 18 km.

History

The Monument of Avram Iancu

The first official documentation of human settlement in the area dates back to 1169. The document mentions a very small village called Villa Tamasd, which in fact is the village Tămaşda, a component of the today commune. In the early 1600 the establishment was destroyed being caught in a battle between the Turkish and Hungarian armies. In 1700 the establishment and its surroundings were transformed in a fiefdom for a Hungarian noble. The today's village of Avram Iancu was founded, in the early 1900, by the Romanian colonists which came from the eastern region of Bihor county. They received here land from the King Ferdinand I of Romania the village being named Regina Maria after Ferdinand's wife Queen Marie. In 1956, under the Communist regime, it was renamed after the 1848 Revolution Romanian hero Avram Iancu.

Economy

File:Eggplant AvI.JPG

Eggplant crop in Avram Iancu

Due to its fertile lands Avram Iancu is one of the biggest producers of agricultural products (vegetables) within Bihor county, supplying the markets for the neighboring cities with fresh high-quality vegetable products. In the beginning (during the communist times), there were just a few households doing intensive production on very small surfaces of land. After 1989 the proportion of households employed in this activity boosted to over 80%, more than a half being specialized in extensive cultures on large areas of land.