In which town was Vlad the Impaler born?

Vlad the Impaler was born in Sighișoara, a town in Transylvania, sometime between 1428 and 1431.

During Vlad’s childhood, Sighișoara was known by its German and Hungarian names, Schässburg and Segesvár. It was part of the Kingdom of Hungary and had a large Transylvanian Saxon population. Vlad’s father, Vlad II Dracul, lived there for several years while political conflict and Ottoman pressure made Wallachia unsafe.

The building traditionally identified as Vlad’s birthplace is now called the Vlad Dracul House, located within Sighișoara’s medieval citadel. The house is a popular tourist attraction, although some details of Vlad’s birth remain based on historical interpretation rather than an undisputed birth record. This is why sources often give a birth range instead of a precise date.

Sighișoara is sometimes confused with Bucharest, Sibiu, or Brașov. Bucharest became important later as a political center, while Sibiu and Brașov were other major Transylvanian towns associated with Vlad’s campaigns and imprisonment. Vlad later ruled Wallachia, the principality south of the Carpathians, and became the historical figure who helped inspire Bram Stoker’s fictional Dracula.