Iași

About Iași

Iași spreads over seven hills in the far northeast of Romania, about 20 km from the Prut and the border with Moldova, and is the seat of Iași County. Its name first appears on 6 October 1408, in a commercial privilege granted by Alexandru cel Bun to the merchants of Lviv, which set out the customs due payable here. It was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1564 to 1859, of the United Principalities until 1862, and — for two years, while Bucharest was under German occupation — the capital of Romania itself, from 1916 to 1918. The 2021 census counted 271,692 people inside the city limits, third in the country after Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca.

The building everyone photographs is the Palace of Culture, begun in 1906 to Ion D. Berindei's neo-Gothic design on the site of the medieval princely court and finished in 1925. It served as the Administrative and Justice Palace until 1955; its 298 rooms now hold the four museums of the Moldova National Museum Complex — art, history, ethnography, and the "Ștefan Procopiu" science and technology collection — and the eight bells in its tower play Hora Unirii on the hour. Two older landmarks stand within a short walk: the Trei Ierarhi monastery church, raised by Vasile Lupu in 1637–39 and carved over every inch of its outer wall, and the Metropolitan Cathedral, which holds the relics of Saint Parascheva, brought to Iași in 1641.

The city lives off its universities and, increasingly, off software. Alexandru Ioan Cuza University opened in 1860 and is the oldest in Romania; the Gheorghe Asachi technical university, the Grigore T. Popa university of medicine and pharmacy and the agricultural one sit alongside it, and between them they fill the city from October to June. Around them has grown a software and outsourcing industry that is now one of the largest private employers here. Antibiotice, one of Romania's biggest drug makers, has produced from Valea Lupului on the western edge of the city since 1955. The airport 8 km east of the centre handled 2,244,156 passengers in 2025, making it the third-busiest in the country.

Two dates fill the streets. On 14 October, the feast of Saint Parascheva, the relics are carried out of the Metropolitan Cathedral and the queue of pilgrims stretches for hours down Bulevardul Ștefan cel Mare — one of the largest religious gatherings in Europe — with the city hall's Sărbătorile Iașului programme built around it. A week later comes FILIT, the International Festival of Literature and Translation, which since 2013 has brought writers, translators and publishers into the theatres and museums of the centre for five days in late October.

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