Until 1968 the communist regime had divided the country into seventeen regions--including one consisting of the Bucharest metropolitan area only--and 152 districts. In an extensive reorganization of local governments at that time, the regions were done away with and replaced by the prewar system of counties (_judete_). In 1971 there were thirty-nine counties, plus Bucharest and its suburban areas, which were still administered separately. Bucharest was one of forty-six municipalities, but it was the only one not subordinate to the district in which it was located. Each county is named for the town that is its administrative center. The newer organization has served to increase public participation in local government but has also increased the authority of the central government. Bucharest, with a population of nearly 1.5 million in 1969, was about six times larger than Brasov, the next largest city. The Bucharest district was smallest in area and greatest in population. Other districts had roughly similar areas and populations. They averaged about 2,350 square miles in area and, although their populations varied between fewer than 200,000 and about 750,000, two-thirds of them had between 350,000 and 650,000 persons. The 1968 reorganization also made extensive changes in the lower portion of the local administrative structure, reducing the number of communes by about 40 percent and villages by nearly 15 percent. Typical counties had about fifty communes of about 4,000 to 5,000 persons each. The smaller local units were created, dissolved, or combined as population and local requirements changed but, as of January 1970, there were 236 towns, 2,706 communes, and 13,149 villages. Of the towns, the forty-seven most important were classified as municipalities, and the communes included 145 that were suburban areas of the larger towns (see ch. 8). POPULATION The area approximating that defined by the 1971 boundaries of the country had a population estimated at about 8.2 million in 1860. Thirty years later it had increased to about 10 million. Growth began to accelerate slightly after 1890, with periods of greatest increases between 1930 and 1941 and between 1948 and 1956, until it reached an estimated 20.6 million in 1971. The 1971 estimate was derived from the 1966 census and projected from vital statistics compiled locally through 1970. On this basis the estimated annual rate of growth was 1.3 percent, exceeded in Europe only by that of Albania. Density of the population was 224 persons per square mile. Projected at the 1971 growth rate, the population in 1985 would be 23.3 million, and it would take fifty-four years for the population of the country to double.