Chișinău

Chișinău is the capital city of Moldova. Moldova's leaders work here.

The city is built on hills next to a river called the Bâc.

Chișinău is the capital of Moldova. The city's tourism office describes it as built on seven hills, right beside the Bâc River.

The 2024 census counted 567,038 people in the city itself. The wider municipality of Chișinău, which also takes in nearby towns and villages, counted 720,128, almost three in every ten of the people counted in the whole census. It was the only one of the country's districts and municipalities whose population grew between the 2014 and 2024 censuses.

Chișinău stands on seven hills close to the Bâc River, according to the city's tourism office. Moldova's National Bureau of Statistics reports that the 2024 census (8 April to 7 July 2024) counted 720,100 usual residents in Chișinău municipality, 29.9% of the total, up from 22.1% in 2014; the municipality, which contains seven towns, was the only district or municipality whose population grew (by 16.8%). The city itself counted 567,038, City Population's table shows.

Density in the municipality rose from 1,071 to 1,260 people per km², and 88.4% of its people live in towns.

Chișinău has a big cathedral with a round dome. It has rows of columns.

A bell tower stands in front of it, in a park.

Chișinău's cathedral stands in a park, the Cathedral Park. It was built from 1830 to 1836 to a design by the architect Avraam Melnikov, who was chosen in a competition. It is built of stone and brick.

Seen from above, its main block is a square 27 meters on each side. A porch with six columns sticks out from each of its four sides, so all four fronts look the same. Its bell tower was built at the same time, 40 meters away. The tower was pulled down in the 1960s and built again in 1998, using old pictures.

The Nativity Cathedral was raised in 1830–1836. Its architect, Avraam Melnikov, chosen by competition, used a late neoclassical (Empire) style with columns in ancient Greek forms. The plan is symmetrical: a cubic main block on a 27 m square, with four porticoes of six Doric columns, making a cross-shaped plan with four identical fronts, built of stone and brick.

The city's tourism office records that the building was damaged in the 1940 earthquake and in the Second World War; its tower, dome and interior were rebuilt in 1956, not quite in their first forms. In Soviet times it served as an exhibition hall, and it reopened in 1996. The four-level bell tower, demolished in the 1960s, was rebuilt in 1998 from period images.

Chișinău has electric buses called trolleybuses. Two long poles on the roof touch wires above the street.

Long ago, horses pulled trams along rails here.

Chișinău's first town plan, drawn up in 1817 by a land surveyor named Ozmidov, gave the new part of the city rectangular blocks and straight streets. The older part, built before 1812, kept the layout of a medieval town.

In 1889 horse-drawn trams began to run, each pulled by two or three horses. Electric trams replaced them in 1913. On 12 October 1949, six trolleybuses started carrying passengers along the main street, now Ștefan cel Mare Boulevard. Trolleybuses still run today, and a sightseeing trolleybus leaves from the triumphal arch at weekends.

The 1817 plan by the surveyor Ozmidov followed the model of Roman military towns, with rectangular blocks and straight streets; it split the old town, with its medieval layout, from a new town on an orthogonal grid, the city's tourism office notes.

The trolleybus operator's history records horse-drawn trams from 1889 under a contract with a Belgian company, electric trams from 1913, and the first six MTB-82 trolleybuses, made in Moscow, on 12 October 1949: each carried 60 passengers on a 6 km route, about 24,000 riders a day. Within a year there were twelve, on a route 8.8 km long. Today's operator, Regia Transport Electric, runs three trolleybus depots and its own workshops.

Chișinău has lots of parks with trees and lakes. People walk, play and rest there.

One big park is called Rose Valley.

A 2019 guide from Moldova's tourism office says Chișinău has more than 23 lakes and many large parks. The oldest park, named after Ștefan cel Mare, a prince of Moldavia, is thought to have been planted in 1818.

Valea Morilor Park, founded in 1950, lies beside Valea Morilor Lake; its Cascade Stairs date from the 1950s and were restored in 2016. Rose Valley covers 145 hectares, including a 9-hectare lake. It was laid out in 1968 on a hill where local people had grown roses for many years.

The city's tourism office calls Ștefan cel Mare Public Garden the oldest park, believed planted in 1818; the Cathedral Park was laid out in 1830–1840, at the same time as the cathedral. Valea Morilor Park (1950) runs along its lake, and its Cascade Stairs, built in the 1950s and left to decay after the Soviet Union broke up, were restored in 2016.

Rose Valley, in the Botanica sector, covers 145 ha, 9 ha of it water, and was laid out in 1968 on a hill long planted with roses. The Dendrarium in Buiucani covers 83 ha, and the Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences, Moldova's main botanical research institution, was founded on 1 September 1951.