Bicaz

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Bicaz is also a commune in Maramureş County, see Bicaz, Maramureş.
Bicaz
Location of Bicaz
Location of Bicaz
Coordinates: 46°54′39″N 26°5′28″E / 46.91083, 26.09111
Country Flag of Romania Romania
County Neamţ County
Status Town
Government
 - Mayor Constantin Catrinoiu (Democratic Party)
Area
 - Total 148,9 km² (Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "," sq mi)
Population (2002)
 - Total 8,643
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
 - Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)

Bicaz is a town in Neamţ County, Romania situated in the eastern Carpathian Mountains near the confluence of the Bicaz and Bistriţa Rivers and near Lake Bicaz, an artificial lake formed by a dam on the Bistriţa. Bicaz used to be a border town until 1918.

Before the construction of the Bicaz Dam and the cement factory (1950s), Bicaz was just a small mountain village where the main economic activity was wood processing. By tradition, the tree trunks were linked together, forming a raft (pluta); a raftman (Romanian: plutaş) used to drive the raft on the Bistriţa river downstream to wood processing facilities in Piatra Neamţ.

The town is a point of departure toward the Ceahlău Massif and Bicaz Canyon (in Romanian: Cheile Bicazului), two important touristic destinations in Romania. The ski resort Durău is also located nearby.

[edit] Economy

Beside the tourism, Bicaz is the site of one of the biggest cement plants in Romania, Carpat Cement owned today by the German company HeidelbergCement. The town has also a few timber factories and wood processing facilities.