Romania's major cities have too few trees and too many cars. The effects are felt most acutely on days of extreme heat.

The country’s five largest cities—Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Timișoara, and Constanța—have fewer trees than half of European cities, according to data from the European Environment Agency on tree cover in major cities, while Eurostat data show that the capital region has one of the highest rates of car ownership among the regions compared. 

Bucharest has less than a quarter (21.9%) of its area covered by tree canopies, half that of Berlin (43.8%) and well below Warsaw (39.7%), Madrid (39.4%), Brussels (36.9%), Sofia (36.8%), or Stockholm (33.9%). Cluj-Napoca has 25.7%, Iași 23.7%, Timișoara 22.0%, and Constanța only 12.7%, which places it among the least green cities in the European Union, ranking 651st out of the 732 cities analyzed. All five major cities in Romania fall below the European median of 28.3%, and the problem is not limited to major cities: 26 of the 35 Romanian cities analyzed fall below this median.

This difference cannot be explained solely by the level of development. Sofia, the capital of a country with lower income than Romania, has 36.8% of its area covered by trees, and Warsaw has 39.7%.

At the same time, Bucharest has a lot of cars. According to Eurostat, in 2024 there were 671 passenger cars per 1,000 residents in the Bucharest-Ilfov region—twice as many as in Berlin (334) and far more than in Brussels (389), Stockholm (398), or Budapest (429). Of the regions compared, only the Warsaw region (685) has a higher figure. Romania’s capital thus combines one of the lowest percentages of tree coverage among the cities compared with one of the highest levels of car ownership, although the figures also include company cars and vehicles from leasing companies registered in the capital.

The effects are felt most acutely in the summer. Trees reduce air temperature through shade and evapotranspiration, and cities with few trees and many paved surfaces, parking lots, and traffic heat up more during heat waves. The cost is borne primarily by those who cannot leave the city: the elderly, children, outdoor workers, and those living in apartment buildings without insulation or air conditioning.

The EU Biodiversity Strategy requires cities with more than 20,000 residents to adopt urban greening plans. For cities in Romania, planting and protecting trees—along with improving public transportation—is no longer merely an aesthetic issue, but a measure for adapting to heat and protecting public health.

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Data sources:

Tree cover: European Environment Agency (EEA) – Urban tree cover dashboard (Copernicus data, 2018) – https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/maps-and-charts/urban-tree-cover-dashboards

Urban population: Eurostat - Population on January 1 - cities and greater cities [urb_cpop1] - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/URB_CPOP1/default/table?lang=en

Passenger cars per 1,000 inhabitants: Eurostat - Stock of vehicles by category and NUTS 2 region [tran_r_vehst] - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tran_r_vehst/default/table?lang=en

Data processing and text design: Daniel Sandu

Infographic: Pascalone Media SRL

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