Caracal municipality covers an area of 72 km2 in the plain of the same name.
If, according to statistics of the year 1845 Caracal had, at that time within its 10 slums 952 families, or approximately 5,000 inhabitants, the 2002 census recorded a total of 36 406 inhabitants, of which 2,000 youngsters were gone to study in the country.
Thousands of years ago may be said that it was a settlement (village), located later on the old Roman road that connected Sucidava of Romula-Malva. As evidence are nuclei of stone, crop specific rubble, silex tools and stone hammers with gloving places discovered during the the arrangement of the park “Constantin Poroineanu”, animal fossil, fragments of pottery and ceramics representing the culture of Vadastra, bronze objects and iron. Transition from the rural settlement to a borough one, will be made later, along with the development of agriculture and trade in this part of the country, and with the growing importance of trade routes that came from Transylvania via Olt Valley to the Danube and that of Craiova and Bucharest which crisscrossed to Caracal. In time becomes the capital of the former county Romanați.
Regarding the name of the city Caracal, were issued two assumptions:
– The first is related to the name of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla (211-217), who after a campaign against the Getae, would-be granted land, in year 215 D. H. to some of the veterans who founded a settlement named after him – Caracalla, Romula citizens receiving Roman citizenship and the name of “romanates”;
– The second hypothesis assumes that the name of the settlement was awarded by Cumanians the IXth and Xth centuries, this being the Cara-cale (Black Castle or Black Tower). It may be only a coincidence in the toponymy of Caracal city. An argument on of the Cumanians presence in these place, is the current existence, in the area of villages bearing the name of Comani, Comanca, Comanita. So far, it is accepted as the first documentary attestation of the city Caracal, the charter issued on November 17th, 1538 at the chancellery in Targoviste by the ruler of Romania Country, Radu Voda Paisie (1535-1545), the illegitimate son of Radu cel Mare.
City of Caracal was raised to the rank in 1994, being the second municipality from the county Olt, as a result of the share which it held in the area, both as urban developement and also as number of inhabitants, industrial and agricultural production, quality of cultural and sports life, spiritual dowry and special human potential. In terms of urbanism, the four districts of blocks and those more than 5,000 homes have running water supply provided from three sources, extracted water through 63 boreholes, each with an average flow of 10 m³ / h and brought through a network with a length of over 37 km. The network distribution, being 60% annular, covers more than 88 km.
