Ialomita County
Tax-free settlement on the exposed Baragan Plain now connected to the sea by Romania's historic Danube bridge
The name Slobozia reveals everything: from the Slavic 'slobod' meaning 'free,' it designated settlements where peasants escaped taxation—the incentive needed to populate this flat, vulnerable Baragan Plain exposed to Tatar and Ottoman raids. The capital was built on Roman Netindava's bones, and the county remains one of Romania's oldest administrative units. Agriculture dominates this geometric landscape of cereals and livestock, broken only where the Borcea arm of the Danube supports vineyards. The critical infrastructure breakthrough came in 1895: architect Anghel Saligny's King Carol I Bridge linking Fetesti to Cernavoda finally connected Bucharest to the Black Sea port of Constanta by rail, transforming Fetesti from obscure village (first mentioned 1528) into transit node.