Sebeș

Sister cities

• Strășeni
• Komárom
• Büdingen
• Komárno

History

It is believed that there has been an earlier rural settlement in this area, with Romanian and Pecheneg population, situated east of today's city. The city itself was built by German settlers — later referred as Transylvanian Saxons, but actually originating from the region of Rhine and Moselle — on the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom in the second half of the 12th century and became an important city in medieval Transylvania. Its city walls were reinforced after the Tatar (Mongol) invasions from 1241 to 1242, but the city was occupied in 1438 by the Ottoman Empire. Transylvania's voivode John I Zápolya died in Sebeș in 1540. The Transylvanian Diet met in Sebeș in 1546, 1556, 1598, and 1600. The location of the meetings, the Zápolya House, is now a museum. In the oldest documents that attest the existence of Sebeș, the city is named "Malebach"(1245), "Millenbach"(1309), names that derive from the German "Malemboch", which means "the river that carries a lot of rocks", which corresponds to the geography of the city. Johannes Tröster's work "Das alt und neue Teutsche Dacia" published in 1666 in Nuremberg sets the date of the city's founding in 1150. The great Mongol invasion destroyed the city in 1242, after which the inhabitants rebuilt it. The old two-towered Romanesque basilica was rebuilt in early Gothic style. The current tower was built on the foundations of the two original towers. The fourteenth century brought with it a period of development of the city, it being listed in 1376 as the third commercial importance among the Saxon cities. A royal deed from 1387 enshrines the right of Sebeș to build fortress walls, although their construction had probably begun before the middle of the 14th century. It thus becomes, despite its small size, the first city in…

Geography

The city lies in the Mureș River valley and straddles the river Sebeș. It is at the crossroads of two main highways in Romania: the A1 motorway coming from Sibiu and going towards Deva and the A10 motorway going towards Alba Iulia and Cluj-Napoca. Their national road counterparts passing through the city are the DN1 (E81) and the DN7 (E68), both of which also come from Sibiu. Sebeș is situated south of the county capital, Alba Iulia. It has three villages under its administration: * Petrești (Petersdorf; Péterfalva) – south * Lancrăm (Langendorf; Lámkerék) – north * Răhău (Reichau; Rehó) – east.