Sighet

Sighet stands where the Iza meets the Tisza, in the mountain basin of Máramaros, surrounded by the wooded ridges of the Carpathians. First recorded in 1326, it became a centre of the county and of trade in the salt extracted nearby. King Louis I extended the privileges of the royal guest settlements of Máramaros to Sighet in 1352; Matthias Corvinus confirmed them in 1472.

The Reformation changed the town's religious life: in 1556 its Catholic church passed to the Reformed community, which maintained a school. Guilds multiplied, and fourteen were recorded in 1706. Tatar raiders plundered valuables hidden in the church in 1717. Piarist teachers arrived in the eighteenth century and opened a school attended by Romanian pupils as well as others, adding another institution to the county town.