Banat

Banat, region in south-eastern Europe, extending over areas of present-day western Romania, north-eastern Serbia, and southern Hungary, with a total area of 28,524 sq km (11,013 sq mi). The term is derived from ban, the local name for a provincial governor. The Banat was an Ottoman province from 1552 to 1718, when it became part of Habsburg Austria. In the second half of the 18th century thousands of German colonists settled in eastern Banat (now in Romania). Banat remained in Austria-Hungary until World War I. By the Treaty of Trianon (1920) the eastern portion of the Banat, about two-thirds of the territory, became Romanian; the western portion became part of the Yugoslavian state (the newly formed Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes); and a tiny portion around Szeged in the north-west remained Hungarian. The Yugoslavian portion, which today is approximately equivalent to the autonomous province of Vojvodina, became part of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro in 1992, after the breakup of Yugoslavia. The Romanian portion centres on the capital of Timiş district, the city of Timişoara (Hungarian, Temesvár). The region was known as the Banat of Temesvár and in earlier times as the Banat of Severin.