Technically, in Romanian, the name is Defileul Dunării for the Danube gorge but locally the region is known as Clisura Dunării. The word Clisura, also the Serbian term used in Banatska Klisura, comes from the Latin clausura for “shut” or “closed” which was used throughout the Balkans for mountain passes and gorges.

I have defined the Clisura Dunării ethnographic zone as the predominantly Romanian area which connects northwards to the high pastures of the Almăj valley and has a long history of Romanian inhabitation. This follows our basic concept for mapping ethnographic zones by including only the places inhabited (villages, comuna and towns).