Roșia Montană Mining Landscape

Roșia Montană is a mining village in the Apuseni Mountains of western Romania. Under Trajan the Romans founded the mining town of Alburnus Maior here, settling Illyrian colonists from Dalmatia. Over 166 years from 106 CE they took out some 500 tonnes of gold, driving 7 km of galleries and setting up waterwheels underground.

The town's name first appears on a wax tablet dated 6 February 131. Twenty-five of these wax-coated wooden tablets have been found, recording legal, economic and everyday matters and the languages people used. The Romans left Dacia in 271. Mining continued on a smaller scale from medieval to modern times, and the later workings surround and cut across the Roman galleries.

The mines passed to the state in 1948, and an open pit was opened at Cetate in 1975, but the mine closed in 2006. A plan for large-scale cyanide gold mining followed; nationwide protests broke out in 2013, and the Chamber of Deputies rejected the project on 3 June 2014. In 2021 the site was inscribed and, because mining licences remained active, placed at the same time on the List of World Heritage in Danger.