Sacalin Island: The place changing Romania, though no one is allowed to step there

Sacalin Island is one of Romania’s fascinating places. It is a place where time seems to have stood still. A piece of land that no one can buy, although many have tried. A realm reserved for nature, home to hundreds of endangered or extremely rare species of plants and animals. At the same time, Sacalin is the place that changed Romania’s history, increasing the country’s surface area by six square kilometers.

The news that Romania’s surface area has increased by 6 square kilometers, to 238,397 kilometers, is information that is at least surprising and hard to process. However, it is a perfectly natural and expected phenomenon. It is yet another spectacular effect of an equally spectacular place: Sacalin Island.

“Romania’s surface area is constantly growing in the Sacalin area. In fact, we expect that in the coming decades, Sacalin will become a peninsula spanning a larger area than the current islands, and this is the natural effect of Danube alluvium deposited by marine currents. Similar changes occur for rivers that form borders with neighboring states, such as the Prut, Tisza, or Mureș, when they change their course, but especially on the Black Sea coast, where it is the effect of deposited alluvium,” explains Serghei Maximov, a Danube Delta tour guide.

Such updates can thus be made once every few decades. In Romania, for example, the last update of this kind was made in 1971, when the official mapping model was changed.

“The total surface area of the territory is 238,397 km2. Romania’s total surface area was updated by the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising, in accordance with the provisions of the Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising Law no. 7/1996, with subsequent amendments and completions,” shows the NIS.

Sacalin Island has been a natural reserve since 1938, and since then, its surface area has been continuously growing. Initially, there were two islands that merged, and those familiar with the place say that only a few years separate us from the moment when the island will join the mainland to the West. Over 230 rare species of birds, fish, and plants that are rare or impossible to find elsewhere have their habitat on Sacalin Island. For this reason, the area cannot be transformed into a tourist attraction, nor can it be developed for real estate. However, there are both tourists and businesspeople putting pressure to gain access to the area. Tourists enter the reserve illegally, risking fines, and developers pressure local authorities to be able to build in the area.