Beclean

Beclean (Hungarian and German: Bethlen) is a town in Bistrița-Năsăud County, in north-eastern Transylvania, Romania. The town administers three villages: Coldău (Goldau; Várkudu), Figa (Füge), and Rusu de Jos (Alsóoroszfalu).

Geography
The town lies on the Transylvanian Plateau, at the confluence of the river Someșul Mare with its affluent, the Șieu. It is located in the western part of the county, at a distance of 30 km from the town of Năsăud and 36 km from the county seat, Bistrița; the city of Dej is 27 km to the west, in Cluj County.

History
The town of Beclean is the ancestral seat of the Hungarian Bethlen family.

In 1850, the town had 1,475 inhabitants, of which 805 were Romanians, 327 Hungarians, 163 Jews, 163 Roma, 5 Germans, and 12 of other ethnicities. At the 2011 census, it had 10,628 inhabitants; of those, 81.6% were Romanians, 14.2% Hungarians, and 3.7% Roma. At the 2021 census, Beclean had a population of 11,260.

Transportation
Beclean is the site of an important railway junction (the train station is called Beclean pe Someș), where secondary routes to Sighetu Marmației and Suceava diverge from the main Căile Ferate Române railway line 400 from Brașov to Satu Mare.

The town is traversed by two national roads: DN17 (part of European route E58), which joins Dej in Cluj County to Suceava, and DN17D, which joins Beclean to Cârlibaba in Suceava County. Additionally, county road DJ172A connects it to Gherla in Cluj County, while road DJ172F provides an alternate route to Dej.

Education
Beclean is home to four high schools: the Petru Rareș National College, the Henri Coandă Technological High School, the Beclean Agricultural Technological High School, and High School Nr. 1. There is also a middle school, the Grigore Silași Gymnasium.

Natives

 * Radu Afrim (born 1968), theater director
 * Károly Bárányos (1892–1956), Hungarian politician
 * György Bernády (1864–1938), mayor of Târgu Mureș
 * Cornel Cornea (born 1981), footballer
 * Cristian Costin (born 1998), footballer
 * Grigore Silași (1836–1897), Greek Catholic priest and philologist
 * Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash (born 1948), Israeli general