Eight other ethnic groups were counted in the 1956 census. The largest was Ukrainian, numbering 60,000. Ukrainians formed the majority population in the southern part of the Danube delta and in pockets along the Soviet border. Some 45,000 Yugoslavs, mostly Serbs, lived in the southern Banat around the Iron Gate. Other Slav minorities included 39,000 Russians in northern Dobruja, near the Bessarabian border; 12,000 Bulgarians, mostly in southern Dobruja; and between 18,000 and 35,000 Czechs and Slovaks in the Banat. Other ethnic groups of significance were 20,000 Tatars and 12,000 to 14,000 Turks in Dobruja, remnants of the period of Turkish rule. Gypsies, variously estimated between 50,000 to 100,000, are not recognized officially as an ethnic minority and not counted separately in censuses. This, combined with their still largely nomadic life, makes any reasonably accurate enumeration difficult. Interethnic Relations Relations between Romanians and Hungarians, the two largest ethnic groups, have been less than smooth. During the eight centuries of Hungarian rule of Transylvania, Romanians, who constituted the poorest rural elements of the population, occupied a subservient position to the wealthier, more urbanized, and better educated Hungarians and Germans. With the joining of Transylvania to Romania in 1918, the Hungarian and German populations of the region lost much of their favored position and, through land reform and nationalization since World War II, they lost their source of wealth. These factors have engendered ill feeling between the groups and have made Transylvania a continuing source of potential problems (see ch. 2; ch. 10). Other factors dividing Romanians and Hungarians have been religious and cultural differences. Sensitive to the respective nationalist feelings of the Romanians and Hungarians and to the historical dissensions between them, government policy since 1947 has been one of promoting unity and cooperation among all groups for the good of the country as a whole. The theme of equality of all members of different ethnic groups and their close cooperation permeates all official documents, reports, and statements. The Romanian Communist Party, which before World War II had a high percentage from ethnic minorities, represents itself as the historic protector of minority populations and their rights. In the late 1960s the party claimed that over 11 percent of its membership were non-Romanians, in line with the proportional strength of minorities in the population.