Timisoara is the capital city of Timis County and the main economic, social and cultural center in western Romania. Located on the Bega River, Timisoara is considered the informal capital city of the historical Banat. From 1848 to 1860 it was the capital of the Serbian Vojvodina and the Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar.

With 319,279 inhabitants at the 2011 census, Timisoara was then the country's third most populous city, after Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca. It is home to almost half a million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, while the Timisoara–Arad conurbation concentrates more than 70% of the population of Timis and Arad counties. Timisoara is a multicultural city, being the home of 21 different ethnicities and 18 religions. Interculturality has long been a special characteristic for the western part of the country.

Conquered in 1716 by the Austrians from the Ottoman Turks, Timisoara developed in the following centuries behind the fortifications and in the urban nuclei located around them. During the second half of the 19th century, the fortress began to lose its usefulness, due to many developments in the military technology. Former bastions and military spaces were demolished and replaced with new boulevards and neighborhoods. Timisoara was the first city in the Habsburg Monarchy with street lighting (1760) and the first European city to be lit by electric street lamps in 1884. It opened the first public lending library in the Habsburg Monarchy and built a municipal hospital 24 years before Vienna. Also, it published the first German newspaper in Southeast Europe (Temeswarer Nachrichten). Timisoara was the starting point of the Romanian Revolution.

Timisoara is one of the most important educational centers in Romania, with about 40,000 students enrolled in the city's six universities. Like many other large cities in Romania, Timisoara is a medical tourism service provider, especially for dental care and cosmetic surgery. Timisoara has made several breakthroughs in Romanian medicine, including the first in vitro fertilization, the first laser heart surgery and the first stem cell transplant. As a technology hub, the city has one of the most powerful IT sectors in Romania alongside Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi and Brasov. In 2013 Timisoara had the fastest internet download speed in the world.

Nicknamed the "Little Vienna" or the "City of Flowers", Timisoara is noted for its large number of historical monuments and its 36 parks and green spaces. Along with Oradea, Timisoara is part of the Art Nouveau European Route. It is also a member of Eurocities. Timisoara has a very active cultural scene thanks to the city's three state theaters, opera, philharmonic and many other cultural institutions. The city will be the next European Capital of Culture in 2023.