[6] Although buildings and districts in the historic city centre were heavily damaged or destroyed by war, earthquakes, and even Nicolae Ceaușescu's program of systematization, many survived and have been renovated.

Bucharest's history alternated periods of development and decline from the early settlements in antiquity until its consolidation as the national capital of Romania late in the 19th century.

During the years to come, it competed with Târgoviște on the status of capital city after an increase in the importance of Southern Muntenia brought about by the demands of the suzerain power – the Ottoman Empire.

The extravagant architecture and cosmopolitan high culture of this period won Bucharest the nickname of 'Paris of the East' (Parisul Estului), with the Calea Victoriei as its Champs-Élysées.

Between 6 December 1916 and November 1918, the city was occupied by German forces as a result of the Battle of Bucharest, with the official capital temporarily moved to Iași (also called Jassy), in the Moldavia region.

Dissatisfied with the postrevolutionary leadership of the National Salvation Front, some student leagues and opposition groups organised anti-Communist rallies in early 1990, which caused the political change.

The Botanical Garden, located in the Cotroceni neighbourhood a bit west of the city centre, is the largest of its kind in Romania and contains over 10,000 species of plants (many of them exotic); it originated as the pleasure park of the royal family.

[36] For nearly two decades, the area shifted from being an abandoned green space where children could play and sunbathe, to being contested by previous owners of the land there, to being closed for redevelopment into a sports centre.

Since 29 October 2020 onwards, it is Nicușor Dan, currently an independent politician previously backed by the PNL-USR PLUS centre-right alliance at the 2020 Romanian local elections.

[49] The city's general council has the following political composition, based on the results of the 2024 local elections: Bucharest's judicial system is similar to that of the Romanian counties.

Although the presence of street children was a problem in Bucharest in the 1990s, their numbers have declined in recent years, now lying at or below the average of major European capital cities.

[14] Although many neighbourhoods, particularly in the southern part of the city, lack sufficient green space, being formed of cramped, high-density blocks of flats, Bucharest also has many parks.

[3] This decrease is due to low natural increase, but also to a shift in population from the city itself to its smaller satellite towns such as Popești-Leordeni, Voluntari, Chiajna, Bragadiru, Pantelimon, Buftea and Otopeni.

A relatively small number of Bucharesters are also Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Bulgarians, Albanians, Poles, French, Arabs, Africans (including the Afro-Romanians), Iranians, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Nepalis, Afghans, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, and Indians.

[87][clarification needed] After relative stagnation in the 1990s, the city's strong economic growth has revitalised infrastructure and led to the development of shopping malls, residential estates, and high-rise office buildings.

[93][94] The Speedtest Global Index ranks Bucharest the 6th city in the world (after Beijing, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Valparaíso, and Lyon) in terms of fixed broadband speed, at 250Mbps as of 2023.

A newer landmark of the city is the Memorial of Rebirth, a stylised marble pillar unveiled in 2005 to commemorate the victims of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which overthrew Communism.

The abstract monument sparked controversy when it was unveiled, being dubbed with names such as 'the olive on the toothpick' (măslina-n scobitoare), as many argued that it does not fit in its surroundings and believed that its choice was political.

This edifice, built in the characteristic style of the large-scale Soviet projects, was intended to be representative of the new political regime and to assert the superiority of the Communist doctrine.

Another impressive art collection gathering important Romanian painters, can be found at the Ligia and Pompiliu Macovei residence, which is open to visitors as it is now part of the Bucharest Museum patrimony.

The city is a centre for other Christian organizations in Romania, including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest, established in 1883, and the Romanian Greek-Catholic Eparchy of Saint Basil the Great, founded in 2014.

[123] To execute a massive redevelopment project during the rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu, the government conducted extensive demolition of churches and many other historic structures in Romania.

Many large-scale constructions such as the Gara de Nord, the busiest railway station in the city, National Bank of Romania's headquarters, and the Telephones Company Building date from these times.

Communist architecture broadly includes three stages: architecture that was built in the early years of communism, in the late 1940s and 1950s, which followed the Soviet Stalinist trend of Socialist Realism, an example being the House of the Free Press (which was named Casa Scînteii during communism); postwar Modernism in the 1960s and the 1970s; and the systematization program of the late 1970s and 1980s, which included mass demolitions of historical buildings and their replacement with North Korean influenced buildings after Nicolae Ceaușescu visited East Asia in 1971, and was impressed by its Juche ideology.

Communist-era architecture from the 1960s and 1970s can be found especially in Bucharest's residential districts, mainly in blocuri, which are high-density apartment blocks that house the majority of the city's population.

Initially, these apartment blocks started to be constructed in the 1960s, on relatively empty areas and fields (good examples include Pajura, Drumul Taberei, Berceni and Titan), however with the 1970s, they mostly targeted peripheral neighbourhoods such as Colentina, Pantelimon, Militari and Rahova.

The mass demolitions that occurred in the 1980s, under which an overall area of eight square kilometres of the historic centre of Bucharest were levelled, including monasteries, churches, synagogues, a hospital, and a noted Art Deco sports stadium, changed drastically the appearance of the city.

These giant, circular halls, which were unofficially called hunger circuses due to the food shortages experienced in the 1980s, were constructed during the Ceaușescu era to act as produce markets and refectories, although most were left unfinished at the time of the revolution.

The largest daily newspapers in Bucharest include Evenimentul Zilei, Jurnalul Național, Cotidianul, România Liberă, and Adevărul, while the biggest news websites are HotNews (with English and Spanish versions), Ziare.com, and Gândul.

Palatul Telefoanelor ("The Telephone Palace") was the first major modernist building on Calea Victoriei in the city's centre, and the massive, unfinished communist-era Casa Radio looms over a park a block away from the Opera.