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The largest, the deepest and the oldest salt mine in Romania

A row of vaulted galleries cut into the salt on level IX, with banded grey walls and ceiling lamps, a few visitors in the distance
A row of vaulted galleries cut into the salt on level IX, with banded grey walls and ceiling lamps, a few visitors in the distance · Andrei Dan Suciu · CC BY 3.0

There is no single ‘largest salt mine in Romania’: the answer depends on what you measure. The deepest visit is at Târgu Ocna Salt Mine, 240 m underground; the largest halls are at Slănic Prahova Salt Mine, 14 salt chambers over about 80,000 m²; the tallest hall is the Terezia mine at Turda, 90 m high; the largest deposit is at Praid, a salt mine closed since May 2025. The most visited is Turda Salt Mine, and the oldest mine preserved almost unchanged is Cacica, from 1791.

Below, each superlative is taken in turn, with the figure, its source and how it is measured, so that you don't compare apples with oranges: the depth of the level you visit is not the depth of the mine, and the floor area of a hall is not the size of the deposit. For opening hours, prices and what is open now, see the guide to Romania's salt mines and the page of each salt mine.

In short

  • The deepest salt mine you can visit in Romania is Târgu Ocna: the tourist base is 240 m underground, on level IX of the Trotuș mine, and salt is cut even further down.
  • The largest salt mine by visitable space is Slănic Prahova: the Unirea mine has 14 trapezoidal halls about 54 m high, over roughly 80,000 m², from which 2.9 million cubic metres of salt were extracted.
  • The tallest salt hall you can visit is the Terezia mine at Turda: 90 m high and 75 m across, with a salt lake up to 6 m deep at the bottom.
  • Turda Salt Mine is 120 m underground, Slănic Prahova 208 m, Praid 120 m, Ocna Dej about 80 m, Cacica 42 m; Salrom does not publish the depth of Ocnele Mari Salt Mine.
  • The oldest documentary record is at Turda (1075), followed by Ocna Dej (1248) and Praid (1291); the oldest visitable mine to have remained almost unchanged is Cacica, opened in 1791.
  • The most visited salt mine in Romania is Turda, with more than half a million visitors a year; Praid, the most visited until 2025, has been closed since May 2025 (status at the end of October 2026).

Which is the largest salt mine in Romania

If ‘large’ means the space you walk around in, the answer is Slănic Prahova Salt Mine. If it means the tallest hall, it is Turda Salt Mine. If it means how deep you go, it is Târgu Ocna Salt Mine. And if it means the salt body it was dug from, it is Praid Salt Mine, which can no longer be visited. The table puts the published figures side by side; where the operator gives no figure, it says ‘not published’, not an estimate.

Salt mineDepth of the visitSpace visitedTallest hallFirst recordStatus (October 2026)
Târgu Ocna Salt Mine240 m9,571 m²not published1407–1434 (town seal)open
Slănic Prahova Salt Mine208 m~80,000 m², 14 halls~54 m1688 (first salt pit)open
Turda Salt Mine120 mRudolf 50 × 80 m, Terezia 75 m across90 m (Terezia mine)1075 (documents)open
Ocnele Mari Salt Minenot publishedover 40,000 m²not publishedNeolithic (archaeology)open
Cacica Salt Mine42 mnarrow galleries, the ballroomnot published1791 (the mine)open
Praid Salt Mine120 m7 halls 20 m wide12–14 m1291 (royal letter)closed since May 2025
Ocna Dej Salt Mine~80 mnot publishednot published1248 (royal charter)no visitors

Figures from the Salrom and salinaturda.eu websites and from the salt mine pages on this site, checked in October 2026. The depth is that of the level visited, not of the whole mine.

The deepest salt mine in Romania

Târgu Ocna Salt Mine is the deepest in the country that you can go down into: the tourist base, fitted out in 2005 on level IX of the Trotuș mine, is 240 m underground. You get there on the salt mine's bus, along a spiral tunnel more than 3 km long. The mine is a working one, and salt is cut even further down, on levels X and XI, where visitors have no access.

In second place is Slănic Prahova, with the Unirea mine at 208 m, which you go down to by minibus along a spiral ramp. Next come Turda and Praid, both at 120 m, then Ocna Dej at about 80 m, where the salt church is, and Cacica, where the ballroom, the lowest point of the route, is at 42 m.

At Ocnele Mari Salrom does not publish a depth in metres below ground, only the elevations of the levels above sea level (+226, +210 and +190), so there is no precise figure; anyone who gives one is estimating it.

The deepest deposit is another matter: the salt body at Praid goes down 2.6–2.8 km, but the tourist base there was at 120 m.

How deep is Turda Salt Mine

Turda Salt Mine gives two figures, measured from different points on the surface, so they do not add up. The leisure area in the Rudolf mine is 120 m underground, and the Terezia mine measures 112 m from the mouth of the shafts to its floor.

What impresses at Turda is not the depth but the height of the halls. The Terezia mine, dug in the shape of a bell, is 90 m high and 75 m across: it is the tallest salt hall you can visit in Romania. At its bottom, a salt lake up to 6 m deep covers about 80% of the floor, with a salt island in the middle, and you take a boat out on it.

The Rudolf mine, above it, has a trapezoidal vault 42 m high, 50 m wide and 80 m long. You go down to its floor by 172 steps or by the panoramic lift, the only lift in an open salt mine in Romania. The salt stalactites on the ceiling grow by about 2 cm a year and reach roughly 3 m in length.

The largest tourist salt mine in Romania: halls and floor area

By the space you visit, Slănic Prahova has no rival. The Unirea mine, dug between 1938 and 1970 on the model of the Wieliczka salt mine in Poland, is a string of 14 trapezoidal chambers linked to one another, about 54 m high, with a ceiling 10 m wide and a base of more than 30 m. Together they cover about 80,000 m², and 2.9 million cubic metres of salt were extracted from them.

In second place is Ocnele Mari, where in 2015 the leisure base moved into a gallery of more than 40,000 m², large enough to hold football pitches, a go-kart track and an ice rink. Târgu Ocna has 9,571 m² of vaulted galleries.

At Turda the floor area is smaller, but the halls are the tallest (see above). At Praid, the seven visiting halls, dug between 1957 and 1978, were 20 m wide, 12–14 m high and several hundred metres long. Cacica is at the opposite extreme: a small mine, dug by hand, with narrow galleries.

The oldest salt mine in Romania

Here too the answer comes in three versions.

The oldest salt working is far older than any mine. At Cacica, archaeological excavations found traces of one of the oldest brine salt works in Europe, from the 5th millennium BC, and at Ocnele Mari Neolithic tools have been found. At Turda, Praid and Ocna Dej salt was taken from surface pits in Roman times.

The oldest record in documents is at Turda, where the salt pits are mentioned in 1075 and 1271. Next come Ocna Dej, in 1248, when King Béla IV granted a salt pit to the bishopric of Eger, Praid, in a letter of King Andrew III from 1291, and Târgu Ocna, whose seal from 1407–1434 already showed a salt cutter. At Slănic, the first salt pit opened in 1688.

The oldest mine you can enter is the Terezia mine at Turda, opened in 1690. Cacica Salt Mine, opened by the Austrians in 1791, is the oldest to have remained almost as the miners left it: galleries dug by hand and a fir-wood staircase of 192 steps more than two centuries old. The newest is Ocnele Mari, a mine begun in 1993 and opened to tourists in 2009.

The most beautiful and the most visited salt mine in Romania

‘Beautiful’ cannot be measured, but two things can be said with figures. Turda Salt Mine is the most visited in the country, with more than half a million visitors a year, and after the 2008–2010 modernisation the international press called it ‘the most beautiful underground place in the world’: the lake with boats in the Terezia mine and the Ferris wheel in the Rudolf mine are the images you see everywhere. Ocnele Mari receives more than 200,000 visitors a year. Praid was the most visited salt mine in Romania until the flood of May 2025.

If you want something other than an underground park: at Slănic Prahova you are struck by the size of the halls and the grey bands in the walls, where you can see the folds of the deposit; at Cacica, by the quiet of an old mine, with Saint Barbara's chapel at 29 m and the ballroom with balconies carved into the salt.

For a comparison on practical criteria (children, lift, distance from town), see the guide to Romania's salt mines.

Other records: the church, the lake, the way down

  • The largest underground church in Romania is at Ocnele Mari, dedicated to Saint Barbara and Saint George, according to Salrom. The church in Ocna Dej salt mine, consecrated in 2000, has room for about 300 people, but the mine does not receive visitors.
  • The only underground lake you can take a boat out on is the one in the Terezia mine at Turda, up to 6 m deep, over roughly 80% of the floor of the hall. At Cacica, the salt lake is more than 2 m deep; Slănic and Târgu Ocna have small lakes with a waterfall.
  • The longest way down is at Târgu Ocna: more than 3 km of spiral tunnel, on the salt mine's bus.
  • The only salt mine with a lift is Turda; at Slănic, the old lift has been out of use since 2014.
  • The only one you go down to on stairs alone is Cacica, by 192 wooden steps, down and back up.
  • The only ice rink in a Salrom salt mine is at Ocnele Mari.

The largest salt mine in Europe: where Romania stands

The claim that Slănic or Praid is ‘the largest salt mine in Europe’ circulates online. The operator, Salrom, does not make it: on the Slănic Salt Mine page it speaks of ‘gigantic volumes’, not of a European record. What can be said with a source is that the salt body at Praid, a block of roughly 1.2 by 1.4 km, 2.6–2.8 km deep, is one of the largest rock salt deposits in Europe. The mine itself, however, has been closed since 2025.

The best-known old salt mines in Europe are the royal mines of Wieliczka and Bochnia, near Kraków, on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The link with Romania is direct: the Unirea mine at Slănic was dug on the model of Wieliczka, and the miners who opened Cacica in 1791 came from there and from Bochnia. There is no world ranking of salt mines by size, and the figures in circulation mix up the depth of the mine, the length of the galleries and the size of the deposit.

Frequently asked questions

What is the largest salt mine in Romania?
By visitable space, Slănic Prahova Salt Mine: 14 halls about 54 m high, over roughly 80,000 m². The tallest hall is the Terezia mine at Turda (90 m), the deepest visit is at Târgu Ocna (240 m), and the largest deposit is at Praid.
What is the deepest salt mine in Romania?
Târgu Ocna Salt Mine, where the tourist base is 240 m underground, on level IX of the Trotuș mine. Next come Slănic Prahova (208 m), Turda and Praid (120 m), Ocna Dej (about 80 m) and Cacica (42 m).
How deep is Turda Salt Mine?
The leisure area in the Rudolf mine is 120 m underground, and the Terezia mine measures 112 m from the mouth of the shafts to the floor. Terezia is 90 m high and Rudolf 42 m, according to the salt mine's official website.
How deep is Slănic Prahova Salt Mine?
208 m. You go down on the salt mine's minibuses along a spiral ramp to the Unirea mine, where the halls are about 54 m high.
How deep is Praid Salt Mine?
The tourist base was at 120 m, on ‘Level 50’, and the salt body goes down 2.6–2.8 km. The salt mine has been closed since May 2025, after the flood, with no reopening date at the end of October 2026.
How deep is Ocnele Mari Salt Mine?
Salrom does not publish the depth in metres below ground, only the elevations of the levels above sea level (+226, +210 and +190). You go underground on the salt mine's bus, in about 10 minutes, through a tunnel.
What is the oldest salt mine in Romania?
The oldest documentary record is at Turda, in 1075. The oldest visitable mine is the Terezia mine at Turda, from 1690, and the oldest preserved almost unchanged is Cacica Salt Mine, from 1791. At Cacica salt was produced from brine as early as the 5th millennium BC.
What is the most beautiful salt mine in Romania?
Turda Salt Mine is the best known and the most visited, with more than half a million visitors a year, and the international press has called it ‘the most beautiful underground place in the world’. For huge halls, Slănic Prahova; for an old mine dug by hand, Cacica.
What is the largest salt mine in Europe?
There is no official ranking. The salt body at Praid is one of the largest rock salt deposits in Europe, and the best-known historic mines are Wieliczka and Bochnia in Poland, on the UNESCO list.

Sources

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