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Revision as of 02:05, 30 October 2003 by 145.254.117.118 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Vlachs 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 Danube.
They are the descendants of the Roman colonists and of the Romanized Dacian, Thracian and Illyrian local population. Their languages are closely related to each other.
The name's origin is Slavic and was given by Slavic neighbours during Volkerwanderung. For example Italy in Polish is called.
Romanians (also known as Daco-Romanians, speaking Romanian language) are living in
and as a minority in
- Ukraine - 500,000; in Southern Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
- Serbia - 70,000; in Serbian Banat
- Bulgaria - 20,000
- Hungary - 11,000
- Slovakia - 9,000
Aromanians (speaking Macedoromanian language) are living as a minority in
- Northern Greece - between 700,000 and 1,200,000; in the Pindus Mountains
- Note: the Greek government does not recognise any ethnic divisions, so there are no exact statistics. See Demographics of Greece.
- Serbia - between 100,000 and 600,000; mostly in the Timoc Valley
- Macedonia - between 150,000 and 180,000
- Albania - between 100,000 and 400,000
- Romania - about 50,000; mostly in Dobruja
- 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
Vlach's religion is predominant 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:
- List of Romanians - Vlachs of Romanian ethnicity
- List of Vlachs - Vlachs of Aromanian ethnicity