Urziceni, Satu Mare

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Urziceni (Hungarian: Csanalos; German:Schinal or Schoenthal) is a village in the Satu Mare County, Romania right on the Hungarian border.

Mainly inhabited by Roman Catholic German ethnics (Donauschwaben - Danube Swabians) who were brought in by the Hungarian ruler of the land, count Alexander Karolyi, to populate the area that had been deserted as a result of a series of wars and epidemics. The process began in 1711 when the first wave of settlers arrived from nowadays Baden Wurttemberg, just north of Lake Constance (Boden See).

During the 20th century they gave up the usage of the German language in favour of Hungarian. In the last decades the population (around 3,000 inhabitants) has dwindled significantly due to emigration to West Germany especially before the fall of the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu, but also in the 1990s, mainly for economic reasons.