The over 400 units included in Romania’s museums and public collections network have attracted 14.2 million visitors in 2016, according to data from Romania’s National Statistics Institute (INS). More than half of them made free visits during the Night of Museums event.

Romanian museums and public collections had over 15 million cultural and natural assets at the end of 2016, of which 14.6 million were cultural and museum goods, and 983,000 were plants and animals in botanical gardens, zoos, aquariums and nature reserves.

Meanwhile, the network of performance and concert institutions and companies comprised 227 units in 2016. Their representations attracted 5.7 million spectators. Among performance institutions and companies, theater attracted most of the spectators (41.7%), followed by artistic ensembles, and dance and entertainment groups (30.4%).

There were 92 cinemas using regular tape formats in the in the records of the National Council of Cinematography at the end of 2016. The national cinema network included 393 cinema halls with a total of over 74,000 seats. A total of 13 million people went to the cinema last year.

At the same time, a total of 505 movies were distributed in cinemas in Romania in 2016, namely 64 Romanian and 441 foreign films. Most of the Romanian films produced last year, namely 49, were feature films, while seven were documentary and scientific films and four were animations.

Meanwhile, Romania’s network of libraries comprised about 10,000 administrative units and 103 branches last year. The libraries’ offer included more than 164 million volumes, according to the INS.

There were 3,581 libraries and 97 branches in urban areas in Romania in 2016, with a book fund of 125.3 million volumes (76.2% of the national book fund available in libraries). Meanwhile, in rural areas, although the number of libraries was considerably higher than the one registered in cities, namely 6,251 libraries and 6 branches, the book fund was much smaller, under 40 million volumes.

Study shows Romanians want more bookstores, cinemas, press distribution centers

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com