Arges

a district in southern Rumania. Area 7,282 sq km; population, 569,300 (1968).

The administrative center of Argeş is Piteşti. The northern part of the district is located in the southern Carpathians. South of Argeş there is a belt of highly undulating foothills and the Lower Danubian Plain. The rivers are part of the Danube Basin and include the Olt and the Argeş. Mountain-forest terrain predominates in the north and steppe terrain in the south.

Argş is both an industrial and an agricultural region. A new oil-drilling region was established under the people’s power. Lignite (up to 800,000 tons a year) is mined near Cimpulung. A hydroelectric power station with a capacity of 200,000 kilowatts has been built at the headwaters of the Argş River. Industry includes textiles, food processing, woodworking, and the manufacture of shoes, leather goods, clothes, and building materials in the cities of Piteşti, Cîmpulung, and Curtea-de-Argeş. Cimpulung and Colibasj have automobile plants. Vast orchards (chiefly plum) and vineyards are cultivated in the foothills. Meat and dairy animals and sheep are raised, and wheat, corn, sunflowers, and sugar beets are grown in the southern part of Argeş.