Send Gift Baskets to Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania

A settlement was first documented in 1332 when Sfântu Gheorghe became one of Transylvania’s oldest cities. In honor of Saint George, the patron saint of the local church, the city is named after him. In the past, it was also known as Sankt Georgen in German. Originally, Sepsi was the prefix used to refer to the area where the ancestors of the local Székely population lived before settling in the area. They decided around the town of “Sebes” (now: Sebeş), later populated mainly by Transylvanian Saxons.

As part of the Kingdom of Hungary, the city served as the economic and administrative center of the Hungarian county of Háromszék, which encompassed parts of Covasna County and Brașov County. During the second half of the 19th century, Sepsiszentgyörgy witnessed the development of a light industry, namely a textile factory and a cigarette factory. The city passed under Hungarian control for four years after the Second Vienna Award in 1940, following the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 after the end of World War I. The Sfântu Gheorghe ghetto briefly existed in the city at the end of that period. Transylvania and the municipality were reaffirmed as Romanian territories by the Paris Peace Treaties after the Second World War. From 1952 to 1960, it was part of the Magyar Autonomous Region, and from 1960 to 1968, it was part of the Brașov Region, abolished in 1968 when Romania was reorganized according to counties rather than regions.

A major Székely community center in the region is Sfântu Gheorghe, which is known to the Székely people as Székelyföld in Hungarian. It is home to the Székely National Museum. Two market fairs are held each year in the city.