Saschiz, a village and commune in Romania's Mureș county, lies in historic Transylvania about 20 kilometres east of Sighișoara. First documented in the 14th century, it is renowned for its medieval fortress and the fortified church built by Transylvanian Saxons, whose massive buttressed walls and defensive upper storey allowed villagers to withstand siege. Its free-standing clock tower deliberately echoes the celebrated tower of nearby Sighișoara, while the hilltop citadel above the village survives in evocative ruin. Along with five other fortified-church villages, Saschiz was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, a landmark of the Saxon colonisation that shaped Transylvania for eight centuries.
