Baia Mare (pronounced ⓘ/?; German Frauenbach or Groß-Neustadt, less frequently just Neustadt or Neustadtl,[3] Hungarian Nagybánya) is a city in northwestern Romania and has about 136,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of Maramureș County.
The oldest documented mention dates back to 1142, when the Hungarian King Géza II had Germans settled in Frauenbach (lat. Rivulus Dominarum).
Gold and silver were mined.
On January 30, 2000, a dam burst in Baia Mare at a tailings plant for metallurgical waste, resulting in a serious environmental disaster due to the release of sodium cyanide and heavy metals. Because of this event, Baia Mare was mentioned in a 2006 study by the Blacksmith Institute on the most polluted cities in the world.[7]
The Phoenix copper smelter was a plant for smelting sulphide copper ores in Baia Mare (Frauenbach) in Maramureș County in Romania. It also included a sulphuric acid factory.
Chimney of the Phoenix copper smelter (height: 351.5 metres)