[4] On 28 July 1978, a team of speleologists discovered in the cave of Cuciulat Paleolithic paintings about 12,000 years old,[5] unique in Romania.

Called the "Romanian Altamira", this cave features several red paintings of animals, including horses and felines.

The only fully studied Bronze Age settlement in the Romanian territory is located in Sălaj County, in Recea.

Bronze items from this period discovered in the Sălaj County are exhibited today in museums in Germany, United States, Hungary, but also Bucharest.

There was a Dacian tribal union between Crasna and Barcău rivers that controlled the access roads to the north-west, to and from Transylvania, as well as the commerce, especially the salt trade.

The largest fortified Dacian settlement in Romania was discovered in Sălaj County, dating from the 1st century AD.

In the Sălaj County area there were identified nine Roman castra (Certinae, Largiana, Optatiana, Porolissum, Brusturi, Buciumi, Jac, Tihău, and Zalău) and the limes (fortified border) of the province.

Byzantine chronicles and Anonymus' Gesta Hungarorum make the first mentions about Romanians in these places, about their forms of organization, as well as the first documentary attestation of Zalău (1220 as villa Ziloc).

[8] Starting with the second half of the 11th century, Hungarians conquer systematically Transylvania, which organizes as an autonomous Voivodate within the Kingdom of Hungary.

In Salaj County are medieval citadels and castles which belonged to noble families (Dragu, Jibou, Gârbou, Șimleu Silvaniei, etc.).

Among them is Almașu Citadel (Romanian: Cetatea Almașului) (nowadays, in ruins), built in the 13th century, a property of Transylvanian voivodes, then of Petru Rareș, Prince of Moldavia.

The history of Salaj County includes an important episode related to historical facts of the maker of the first political union of Wallachia, Transylvania, and Moldavia under Michael the Brave.

At the stage of political activism, the Transylvanian Romanians achieved representation in the Parliament in Budapest, advocating there for national rights.

At the beginning of Greater Romania, Sălaj County had 3,815 km2 and 226,716 inhabitants, of which: 139,878 Romanians, 70,405 Hungarians, 9,322 Slovaks, 831 Jews, 6,282 other nationalities.

According to documents from the State Archives, Sălaj County, in 1933 had 342,642 inhabitants, of which: 202,176 Romanians, 90,800 Hungarians, 30,840 Germans, 17,138 Jews, 1,715 other nationalities.

In 1938, King Carol II promulgated a new Constitution, and subsequently, he had the administrative division of the Romanian territory changed.

By Second Vienna Award, concluded on 30 August 1940, arbitrated by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Romania had to cede to Hungary Northern Transylvania.

Between 1940 and 1944, in Szilágy County notable incidents happened, claiming the lives of 495 people,[9] most of them culminating in the Ip and Treznea massacres.

Beginning in 1944, Romanian forces with Soviet assistance recaptured the ceded territory and reintegrated it into Romania, re-establishing the county.

After December 1989, in the conditions of return to a democratic political regime and Euro-Atlantic integration, Sălaj has become a model of interethnic cohabitation, also manifested in education.

[13] It is located in the north-west of the country, overlapping mostly in the area of connection between the Eastern Carpathians and Apuseni Mountains, known as "Someș Plateau".

The thermal regime of the air is conditioned by altitude, fragmentation and orientation of relief, plus local factors, the average temperature being around 8 °C.

[12] The most abundant precipitation falls in summer, when besides frontal processes occurs the intense thermal convection, causing showers, rich in terms of quantity.

Municipalities Towns Communes Historically, the county was located in the northwestern part of Greater Romania, on the border with Hungary.