Mizil () is a town in Prahova County, Muntenia, Romania. Located in the southeastern part of the county, it lies along the road between the cities of Ploiești and Buzău, and to the northeast of the national capital, Bucharest. Its position led it to become a thriving market town beginning in the 18th century, before a long period of economic decline began in the early 20th century. Agriculture gave way to industry as the chief employment under the Communist regime, but the town has continued to face difficulties in the wake of a late-1990s deindustrialisation. Geography The town is situated in southeastern Prahova County, on the border with Buzău County; the four rural localities that surround it are Gura Vadului (north), Baba Ana (south), Săhăteni (east) and Fântânele (west). The Tohani, Pietroasa and Istrița vineyards are all nearby. It is 35 km distant from both Ploiești and Buzău, with Bucharest 92 km to the southwest. Mizil is the only city or town in Romania to lie on the 45th parallel north. Located on a series of fields with altitudes of 80–95 m, it is on the Mizil Plain, a subdivision of the Bucureștilor Plain, in turn part of the Wallachian Plain, and has been called the "gate to the Bărăgan", a reference to the plain extending to its east. It is also on the edge of the plain region and the southern reaches of foothills leading up to the Southern Carpathians, being bounded by the Sărata Plain to the south and by Istrița Hill to the northeast. The area's rocks are Neogene molasse; there is also gravel and sand. Near the surface, there are loess layers of different thickness. Mizil covers 1931 ha, of which 77.7% are agricultural land, water, forests and green spaces, and 22.3% are developed. The Istău stream runs through it. The town administers one village, Fefelei, although this is essentially a neighbourhood today. Climate Mizil has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa in the Köppen climate classification). Demographics Of Mizil's 14,312 residents at the 2011 census, 83.7% were ethnic Romanians and 16.3% were Roma. One 2008 estimate put the number of Roma at 5,000 or 30.5% of the population estimated at the time. At the same census, according to religion, 93.9% were Romanian Orthodox, 5.4% Pentecostal, 0.7% other or none. (Census figures refer to inhabitants for whom data were available; there were no ethnic or religious statistics