A total of 1,238,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Romania, making up 6.5% of the population, the Romanian Statistics Institute announced on Thursday, portal Politics.hu reports.

According to the first partial results of the census taken last year, Hungarians make up the largest national minority in Romania.

The number of Hungarians fell by nearly 194,000 from the 2001 census, but their proportion has not changed, as they made up 6.6% of the population at that time.

Hungarians form a majority in two counties, making up 84.8% of the population in Harghita and 73.6% in Covasna county.