Town in SE extremity of Romania (Constanta county),
situated on the Black Sea coast, elevation 0-10 m, 44 km S of the
municipality of Constanta, S of the parallel of 44 N, on the
same latitude as the Freanch resort of Nice; population 43,374
(July 1, 1991). Railway terminus. Mangalia, whose current name
derives from Byzantine Greek (Pangalia or Pancalia - "the most
beautiful" - mentioned in the 12th century on a map from Pisa),
is the southernmost resort on the Romanian coast of the Black
Sea, built on the place where in Antiquity there was the
flourishing Greek city of Callatis (founded in the 6th c. B.C. by
Greek colonists from Heraklion).
Moderate maritime littoral
climate (annual average temperature 11.2°C) with hot summers
(July average over 22°C) and mild winters
(January average 0.2°C), Mangalia being the country's second place,
after Baile
Herculane, with positive average temperatures in wintertime).
Spring comes early but is cool and autumn is long and warm. In
summertime, the nebulosity is reduced (about 25 sunny days in a
month) and the duration of sunshine is of 10-12 hours a day. Low
precipitation (about 400 mm annualy). The sea breeze is stronger
in summer. The natural cure factors are the water of the Black
Sea, which is chlorided, sulphated, sodic, magnesian, hypotonic
(mineralization 15.5g), the sulphurous, chlorided, bicarbonated,
sodic, calcic, mesothermal (21-28°C) mineral waters of the
springs in the northern part of the town, in the area of the
beach between Saturn and Venus, the sulphurous peat mud, rich in
minerals, which is extracted from the peat bog north of the town
(exploitation is estimated to last for 250 years) and the marine
climate, rich in saline aerosols and solar radiation that have a
bracing effect on the organism. The resort has a large, fine-sand
beach developed for purposes of aeroheliotherapy and wave
therapy, as well as high seawalls with a specific microclimate
where one may benefit from inhalations of saline aerosols having
therapeutic effects.
The resort is good both for healthy
holidaymakers and for ailing people who can take cures for
degenerative, inflammatory and abarticular rheumatic diseases
(cervical, dorsal and lumbar spondylosis, arthrosis and
polyarthrosis; pain in the joints after acute artic ular
rheumatism or specific infections, ankylosing spon dylosis,
psoriatic arthropathy, biologically stabilized the umatoid
polyarthritis; tendonits, tendomyositis, tendoperiostosis,
scapulohumeral periarthritis), peripheral and central
neurological disorders (post-traumatic paralyses or pareses of
the limbs, polyneuropathies after the acute stage, sequels after
poliomyelitis), gynecological disorders (ovarian insufficiency,
chronic cervicitis, chronic metrosalpingitis), certain
dermatological diseases (according to medical advice),
respiratory (allergic asthma, tracheobronchitis, chronic
bronchitis), cardiovascular (incipient varices, sequels after
phlebitis, etc.), endocrinological (benign hypothyroidism,
pubertal hypoovarianism, ovarian sterility), otolaryngological
diseases (chronic rhinopharyngitis, chronic laryngitis,
nasosinusal allergy), etc. The resort has two modern treatment
bases - one at the Mangalia health hotel (over 500 places in two-
bed rooms) which is equipped with its own treatment facilities
(four pools for sulphurous-water kinetotherapy, an electrotherapy
section, two hydrotherapy sections, a pneumotherapy section,
medical gyms and massage parlours, geriatrics cabinets, tests and
functional explorations laboratories, acupuncture cabinets, pools
with heated seawater, etc.), and the other at the Balneal
Sanatorium for medical recovery, an institution boasting many
medical sections with fine equipment and a treatment capacity of
about 500 persons daily.
Tourist attractions: the Scythian tomb
discovered in 1959 where archaeologists unearthed fragments of a
papyrus in Greek, the first document of this kind in Romania; the
incineration tombs (the necropolis of the Callatis citadel,
dating back to the 4th-2nd centuries B.C.); the ruins of the Callatis citadel (6th century B.C.); the Turkish mosque (16th
century); the Archaeology Museum which shelters a rich collection
of amphorae and sculptures from the Hellenistic epoch, fragments
of stone sarcophagi, etc. Near the town there is main purebred
Arabian stud farm. Many recreation and amusement facilities
(discos, cinema halls, libraries, spotsgrounds, bowling, pleasure
trips by ship on the Black Sea, etc.).
North of the town, over a
distance of 8 km there extend the new summer resorts of Saturn,
Venus, Cap Aurora, Jupiter, Neptun and Olimp, which are
administered by the town of Mangalia to which they are limked by
bus and minibus lines.
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