Human-wildlife interactions (HWI) are increasingly common as human disturbance and development continue to remove wildlife habitats. Documenting HWIs is critical for management agencies to develop strategies and management decisions that meet the needs of both people and wildlife. However, evaluating the frequency and types of HWI at broad spatial scales (e.g., national or regional level) can be costly and difficult to implement by managers. In this study, we apply a novel method for evaluating the patterns of HWI in urban areas using publicly available data from emergency calls placed by inhabitants of Romania’s >300 urban areas. We used information from 4,601 emergency calls (Romanian National Emergency Call System 112), consisting of (1) wildlife species, (2) spatial location, (3) date and time, and (4) a short description of the emergency.  Out of the 318 analyzed cities, 300 cities documented emergency calls on HWI between 2015–20120, with roe deer and brown bear as the most frequent species. There was an increasing trend in HWI-related emergency calls in 73% of the urban areas. We mapped the large-scale distribution of HWI by species and type of interactions, capturing variations at the national level, and further, we analyze social and biophysical factors influencing the occurrence and frequency of HWI. The results showed that social factors have the same positive or negative effect on all species, while the effect of the biophysical factors varied between species. Particularly, the presence of large natural habitats, represented by forests, influenced the number of calls only for brown bears. Seminatural landscapes with agricultural land have a different influence in terms of effect and significance for the considered species. Our results suggest that publicly available data from emergency calls can be used for the rapid assessment of HWI and for evaluating trends and predictors of HWI at broad spatial scales.