Mărginimea Sibiului

Mărginimea Sibiului comprises 18 localities in the south-west of Sibiu County: Boița, Fântânele, Galeș, Gura Râului, Jina, Orlat, Poiana Sibiului, Poplaca, Rășinari, Râu Sadului, Rod, Sadu, the town of Săliște, Sibiel, the town of Tălmaciu, Tălmăcel, Tilișca and Vale. The area covers more than 200 km² close to Sibiu, and the villages lie where the mountains meet the depression and along the valleys of the rivers flowing down from the Cindrel Mountains. Among the earliest documentary records are those of Tălmaciu (1318), Orlat (1322) and Săliște (1354). At various times some of these settlements, together with the Făgăraș Land, were fiefs granted by the kings of Hungary to the rulers of Wallachia. In the eighteenth century Empress Maria Theresa established the 1st Border Regiment at Orlat. The population is mainly Romanian, and the inhabitants are known as mocani or mărgineni. Their main occupation was sheep farming, with flocks that crossed the Carpathians and kept the Romanian communities north and south of the mountains in contact. The black-and-white folk costume is still worn on important occasions, and painting icons on glass is a tradition of the area. The architecture shows Saxon influence, with large houses and courtyards closed on all sides. Places of interest include the old churches of Săliște, the wooden churches of Poiana Sibiului (1771), Fântânele (1772-1774) and Tălmăcel (1776), the glass icon museum in Sibiel, the ethnographic and church art museum in Fântânele (open since 1995), the small museums and memorial houses in Rășinari and Săliște, and the museum in Sadu, the site of one of the first hydroelectric plants in Europe. Traces of a Dacian fortress have been found near Tilișca.