Baia Sprie
town in Maramureș County, Romania
Baia Sprie (Romanian pronunciation: [ˌbaja ˈspri.e] ; Hungarian: Felsőbánya, German: Mittelstadt) is a town in Maramureș County, northern Romania. Baia Sprie is situated at a distance of 9 km (5.6 mi) from Baia Mare and belongs to the Baia Mare metropolitan area.
The town administers three villages: Chiuzbaia (Kisbánya), Satu Nou de Sus (Felsőújfalu), and Tăuții de Sus (Giródtótfalu). Neighbouring communities are the city of Baia Mare and the communes Groși, Dumbrăvița, Șisești, and Desești.
The town was one of the most important mining centers in north-western Romania, exploitation of gold and silver being mentioned in documents written in the Middle Ages, during the time when the Saxons colonized the region. However, recent administrative changes and restructuring of the Romanian mining industry brought this activity to an almost complete halt.
History
The first written mention of the settlement dates back to 1329 as "Civitas in medio monte", in 1406 as "civitas Medii Montis", in 1390, 1452, 1455 as "civitas Felsevbanya", and since 1523 as Felsőbánya. The old Romanian name of the town was Baia de Sus, which means "Upper Mine", same as in Hungarian.
The town was in Szatmár County, in the Kingdom of Hungary. King Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, as part of treaty with Serbian ruler Despotus Stefan Lazarević, gave him Baia Sprie as a gift in 1411, until Lazarević' death in 1427.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Baia Sprie” as town in Maramureș County, Romania. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as town in Maramureș County, Romania. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q803706. VIAF identifies the subject as 240109365. Authority coordinates are 47.661, 23.689. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1329, 1406, 1390 and 1452.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Baia Sprie”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Baia Sprie primary sources, Baia Sprie archive and Baia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Baia Sprie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.