Hungary is a heart-stealer; it will lure you back again and again to sample its rich wines, lounge in its thermal spas, gaze at its birdlife and make one more attempt to master its hermetic language. It has all the luxury of western Europe with a Magyar twist and at half the cost. Its graceful capital Budapest has a lively arts, cafe and music scene, and is host to a range of cultural and sporting festivals. In the countryside you'll find majestic plains, resort-lined lakes, Baroque towns, horse markets and rustic villages.

Population: 12.006.835

Largest Cities (over 100,000 inhabitants):

Budapest - 2.075.906, Szeged - 957.843, Pecs - 733.412, Debrecen - 370.802, Gyor - 178.918, Miskolc - 102.703

Total area: 93,030 sq km
land: 92,340 sq km
water: 690 sq km

Budapest

Budapest is the capital city of Hungary and the country's principal political, industrial, commercial and transportation centre. It became a single city occupying both banks of the river Danube with the amalgamation in 1873 of right-bank Buda (Ofen in German) and Óbuda (Old Buda or Alt-Ofen) together with Pest on the left (east) bank. It is the sixth largest city in the European Union. Budapest's recorded history begins with the Roman town of Aquincum, founded around 89 AD on the site of an earlier Celtic settlement near what was to become Óbuda, and from 106 until the end of the 4th century the capital of the province of lower Pannonia. Today's Pest became the site of Contra Aquincum (or Trans Aquincum). The area was occupied around the year 900 by the Magyars, the ancestors of today's ethnic Hungarians, who a century later founded the kingdom of Hungary. Already a place of some significance, Pest recovered rapidly from its destruction by Mongol invaders in 1241, but it was Buda, the seat of a royal castle since 1247, which in 1361 became the capital of Hungary.

The Ottoman Empire's conquest of most of Hungary in the 16th century interrupted the cities' growth: Pest fell to the invaders from the south in 1526 and Buda 15 years later. While Buda remained the seat of a Turkish governor, Pest was largely derelict by the time of their recapture in 1686 by Austria's Habsburg rulers, since 1526 kings of Hungary despite their loss of most of the country. It was Pest, from 1723 the seat of the administrative apparatus for the kingdom, which enjoyed the fastest growth rate in the 18th and 19th centuries and contributed the overwhelming majority of the cities' combined growth in the 19th. By 1800, larger than Buda and Óbuda combined, Pest's population grew twentyfold in the following century to 600,000, while that of Buda and Óbuda quintupled.

The fusion of the three districts under a single administration, first enacted by the Hungarian revolutionary government in 1849 but revoked on the subsequent restoration of Habsburg authority, was finally effected by the autonomous Hungarian royal government established under the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich ("Compromise") of 1867. The total population in the area of the unified capital grew nearly sevenfold in 1840–1900 to 730,000. During the 20th century, most population growth occurred in the suburbs, with Újpest more than doubling in 1890–1910 and Kispest more than quintupling in 1900–1920, as much of the country's industry came to be concentrated in the city. The country's human losses during World War I and the subsequent loss of more than half of the former kingdom's territory (1920) dealt only a temporary blow, leaving Budapest as the capital of a smaller but now sovereign state. By 1930 the city proper contained a million inhabitants, with a further 400,000 in the suburbs. Around a third of Budapest's 250,000 Jewish inhabitants died through Nazi genocide during the World War II German occupation in 1944. On January 1, 1950, the area of Budapest was significantly expanded: new districts were formed from the neighbouring cities and towns. From the severe damage during the Soviet siege in 1944, the city recovered in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming to some extent a showcase for the more pragmatic policies pursued by the country's communist government (1947–1989) from the 1960s. Since the 1980s, the capital has shared with the country as a whole in increased emigration coupled with natural population decrease.

Budapest's highlights include a cruise along the Danube, strolling along the riverfront or across romantic bridges, browsing through antique bookshops and jewellery stores, or 'taking the waters' at one of the city's many spas. The city is well laid-out, rarely confusing, and ideal for walking.

Hungarian culture

The culture of Hungary is rich and varied, from the twin cities of Buda and Pest on the Danube, to the Great Plain bordering Ukraine. Hungary today came from the Austro-hungarian empire. Hungary has great folk traditions, producing embroideries, pottery, decorated buildings, and carvings. Hungarian music ranges from the rhapsodies of Franz Liszt and Béla Bartok to Roma and folk music.

Hungary has a long and proud history in sports such as fencing, football and gymnastics. Ferenc Puskás is one of world football's most well loved figures. Puskás started his club career with Budapesti Honvéd in 1943. He moved to Real Madrid in 1958, and played for them when they won the European Cup four times, including the classic final in 1960 when they beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3. Puskás scored four goals, with Alfredo Di Stefano scoring three. This Madrid team was considered one of the finest teams to ever play the game. In his club career, he apparently totalled 511 goals, a number believed to be third all-time behind Pelé and Josef Bican. Puskás played for the Hungarian Olympic team which won the Olympic gold medal in 1952. He made 85 appearances for the Hungarian national team between 1945 and 1956, scoring 84 goals. In the 1954 World Cup, Puskás was a runner-up. Hungary were overwhelming favorite to win the tournament, having gone 3 years unbeaten, including impressive 6-3 and 7-1 victories over England. However, in the final group match, they beat West Germany 8-3, but lost Puskás to injury. The team cruised into the final, where Puskás made his return, scoring the first goal in a 3-2 loss. Puskás is understood to be one of the most famous living Hungarians and Hungary's national stadium was renamed in his honor in 2001.

Hungary is also well known for its water sports, e.g. swimming, canoeing, and water polo (despite its lack of large bodies of water). The country has produced the likes of Krisztina Egerszegi (who between the 1988 and 1996 olympics won 5 gold medals in the pool), Ágnes Kovács (double olympic swimming champion, and counting) and the current mens water polo olympic champions.

Many important mathematicians such as János Bolyai, Paul Erdös and John von Neumann were Hungarian. Hungarians are proud of their inventions such as the match, ballpoint pen, electronic railway engine, BASIC programming language and hydrogen bomb.Hungary has a great literature, with so many poets and writers, although not many are well known abroad due to the limited extent of the Hungarian language. Some noted authors include Sándor Márai and Imre Kertész, who have been gaining acclaim in recent decades. Imre Kertész won Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002.

The Hungarian language is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in Hungary and in adjacent areas of Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Slovenia (all territories lost after World War I). The Hungarian name for the language is Magyar. There are about 15 million speakers.

Vowel harmony is typical for agglutinating languages like Sumerian, Hungarian and Turkish. Vowels can be high/front (eéiíöőüű) or deep/back (aáoóuú). Hungarian words can be classified from the point of view of vowel harmony into three groups:

1. Words of deep sound order (Mély hangrendű szavak): These words contain only deep vowels - ablak, ajtó, hordár, búsul.
2. Words of high sound order (Magas hangrendű szavak): These words contain only high vowels - kefél, zizzen, kézfej;
3. Words of composite sound order (Vegyes hangrendű szavak): These words contain also deep and high vowels - ásít, papír, birtok, kazetta.
4. The sound order of compound words (words divisible into two or more meaningful subwords) is the sound order of their last component (kalapács|vető is high-ordered, because vető is high-ordered, hang|kazetta is composit-ordered etc.).

Old Hungarian words typically contain either only front or only back vowels (malac: deep, egér: high).

(The law of vowel harmony): An ending must be the same type as the sound order of the word, so a word of high order gets high suffixes (szekrény - szekrények), and a word of deep order gets deep suffixes (ház - házak, ablak - ablakok ), but a word of composite order generally gets deep-ordered suffixes, except some unused archaisms and some loanwords from foreign languages (béká-val, farmer-ben = farmer-ban), or old but frequently used words containing neutral vowels (e,í) (híd-on, híd-ra; derék-ba).

Suffixes (containing vowels) generally have two or three variants, one with a high vowel and one with a deep vowel (in: -ban, or -ben; into: -ba, or -be).

So, for example, the word kartonpapír, because it is a compound word (karton-papír) with a composite ordered last component (papír), gets deep suffixes (kartonpapírral, kartonpapírhoz, etc.), even though its last vowel is high.

Hungarian cuisine includes many pork and beef dishes, particularly goulash (a beef soup – gulya means a herd of cows, gulyás is like 'cowboy'), or a stew known in Hungarian as pörkölt. Dishes are often flavoured with paprika. Hungary also produces wine, including tokay from Tokaji.

A brief history of Hungary

In the time of the Roman Empire, the Romans called this province Pannonia. After Rome fell, Hungary, like the other provinces, was affected by the migrations. First came the Huns, who built up under Attila the powerful Hunnish Empire. The name “Hungary” is influenced by the name of the Hun people, although it probably comes from the name of the Turkish tribe Onogur (Polish Węgrzy, German Ungarn, etc.). After the empire of the Huns disintegrated, German tribes ruled in Hungary for about 100 years, and were followed by the Avars. During the 200 year supremacy of the Avars, the migration of the Slavonic tribes began. Moravians, Bulgars, Croats, Serbs, and Poles all sought to overthrow the Avars, but their power was not broken until Charlemagne. The decline of the kingdom of the East Franks, after the death of Charlemagne, was favourable to the development of a great Slavonic power, and Swatopluk, ruler of Great Moravia, sought to establish a permanent Moravian kingdom, but the appearance of the Magyars put an end to these schemes.

Tradition holds that the Country of the Magyars (Hungary) was founded by Árpád, who led the Magyars into the Pannonian plains at the end of the 9th century. The Kingdom of Hungary was established in 1000 by King St. Stephen I. Initially the history of Hungary was developed in a triangle with that of Poland and Bohemia, with the many liaisons with Popes and Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Hungary was partially demolished with a great loss of life in 1241–1242 by Mongol armies of the Golden Hrde.

Gradually Hungary turned into a large, independent kingdom which formed a distinct Central European culture with ties to greater West European civilisation. Matthias Corvinus ruled Hungary from 1458 to 1490. He strengthened Hungary and its government. Under his rule, Hungary (notably the northern parts, some of which are in Slovakia today) became an artistic and cultural center of Europe during the Renaissance. Hungarian culture influenced others, for example the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Together with Polish and Czech lands, Hungary formed the Visegrád group of nations. Today an alliance of the same name exists again with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.

Hungarian independence ended with the Ottoman conquest at the beginning of the 16th century; the parts of Hungary that were not conquered by the Ottomans were annexed by Austria (the rulers of which were Hungarian kings at the same time) in the West, and became the independent Principality of Transylvania in the East, where thus Hungarian statedom was preserved. After 150 years, Austria and her Christian allies retook also the territory of today's Hungary by the end of the 17th century from the Ottoman Empire.

After the final defeat of the Turkish, struggle began between the Hungarian nation and the Habsburg kings for the protection of noblemens' rights (thus guarding the autonomy of Hungary). The fight against Austrian absolutism resulted in the unsuccessful popular freedom fight led by a Transsylvanian nobleman, Ferenc II Rákóczi, between 1704 and 1711. The revolution and war of 1848–1849 eliminated serfdom and secured civil rights. The Austrians were finally able to prevail only with Russian help.

Thanks to the victories against Austria by the French-Italian coalition (the Battle of Solferino, 1859) and Prussia (Battle of Königgratz, 1866), Hungary would eventually, in 1867, manage to become an autonomous part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see Ausgleich), until the Empire's collapse following World War I. Hungary separated from Austria on October 31, 1918.

In March 1919 the communists joined the government, and in April, Béla Kun proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. This government proved to be short lived; the Romanian army invaded, the communist forces were defeated and the Soviet Republic was toppled on August 6, 1919. Rightist military forces, led by the former Austro-Hungarian Admiral Miklós Horthy, entered Budapest in the wake of the Romanian army's depature and filled the vacuum of state power. In January 1920, elections were held for a unicameral assembly, and Admiral Horthy was subsequently elected Regent. In June, the Treaty of Trianon was signed, fixing Hungary's borders. Compared with the pre-war Kingdom, the size and population of this new Hungary were reduced by about two-thirds. Miklós Horthy ruled with autocratic powers for most of the interwar period. Hungarian politics and culture of the era was saturated with irredentism and revisionism (the resurrection of pre-Trianon sized Hungary by whatever means it takes).

Horthy made an alliance with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, in the hope of revising the territorial losses that had followed World War I. Hungary was rewarded by Germany with historical Hungarian territories belonging to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania, and took an active part in World War II. However, in October 1944, Hitler replaced Horthy with the Hungarian Nazi collaborator Ferenc Szálasi and his Arrow Cross Party in order to avert Hungary's defection to the Allied side, which were constantly on schedule since the Allied invasion of Italy. During the Holocaust more than 400,000 Jews and several tens of thousands of Roma perished in Hungary, but the Jewish population of Budapest (approx.200,000) wasn't let to be transported into eliminatory camps because Horthy hindered it.

Following the fall of Nazi Germany, Hungary became part of the Soviet area of influence and was appropriated into a communist state following a short period of democracy in 1946–1947. After 1948 Communist leader Mátyás Rákosi established a Stalinist rule in the country, which was barely bearable for the war torn country. This led to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution/revolt and announced withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact were met with military intervention by the Soviet Union and the deposition and execution of the reform-minded communist prime minister Imre Nagy. From the 1960's on to the late 1980's Hungary enjoyed a distinguished status of "the happiest barrack" within the Eastern Bloc, under the rule of late controversial communist leader János Kádár, who exercised autocratic rule at most of this era. In the late 1980s, Hungary led the movement to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and shifted toward multiparty democracy and a market-oriented economy. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Hungary developed closer ties with Western Europe, joined NATO in 1999 and joined the European Union on May 1, 2004.