Budapest Hungary

Description: Budapest is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and it was the largest city on the Danube river; today it is the second largest one.

The city has an estimated population of 1,752,286 over a land area of about 525 square kilometers (203 square miles). Budapest, which is both a city and county, forms the centre of the Budapest metropolitan area, which has an area of 7,626 square kilometers (2,944 square miles) and a population of 3,303,786. It is a primate city, constituting 33% of the population of Hungary.

Population: 1,780,452

Demographics: By ethnicity there were 1,697,039 (96.2%) Hungarians, 34,909 (2%) Germans, 16,592 (0.9%) Romani, 9,117 (0.5%) Romanians and 5,488 (0.3%) Slovaks. In Hungary people can declare multiple ethnic identities, hence the sum may exceed 100%.

 The share of ethnic Hungarians in Budapest (96.2%) is slightly lower than the national average (98.3%) due to the international migration. According to the 2011 census, 1,712,153 people (99.0%) speak Hungarian, of whom 1,692,815 people (97.9%) speak it as a first language, while 19,338 people (1.1%) speak it as a second language. Other spoken (foreign) languages were: English (536,855 speakers, 31.0%), German (266,249 speakers, 15.4%), French (56,208 speakers, 3.3%) and Russian (54,613 speakers, 3.2%).

History: The first settlement on the territory of Budapest was built by Celts before 1 AD. It was later occupied by the Romans. The Roman settlement – Aquincum – became the main city of Pannonia Inferior in 106 AD.

The Magyar tribes led by Árpád, forced out of their original homeland north of Bulgaria by Tsar Simeon after the Battle of Southern Buh, settled in the territory at the end of the 9th century displacing the founding Bulgarian settlers of the towns of Buda and Pest, and a century later officially founded the Kingdom of Hungary. Research places the probable residence of the Árpáds as an early place of central power near what became Budapest.

The Tatar invasion in the 13th century quickly proved it is difficult to defend a plain. King Béla IV of Hungary, therefore, ordered the construction of reinforced stone walls around the towns and set his own royal palace on the top of the protecting hills of Buda. In 1361 it became the capital of Hungary.

The Ottomans conquered Buda in 1526, as well as in 1529, and finally occupied it in 1541. The Ottoman Rule lasted for more than 150 years. The Ottoman Turks constructed many prominent bathing facilities within the city. Some of the baths that the Turks erected during their rule are still in use 500 years later, including Rudas Baths and Király Baths. By 1547 the number of Christians was down to about a thousand, and by 1647 it had fallen to only about seventy. The unoccupied western part of the country became part of the Habsburg monarchy as Royal Hungary.

In 1686, two years after the unsuccessful siege of Buda, a renewed campaign was started to enter Buda. This time, the Holy League’s army was twice as large, containing over 74,000 men, including German, Croat, Dutch, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Czech, Italian, French, Burgundian, Danish and Swedish soldiers, along with other Europeans as volunteers, artillerymen, and officers.

The Christian forces seized Buda, and in the next few years, all of the former Hungarian lands, except areas near Temesvár (Timișoara), were taken from the Turks. In the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, these territorial changes were officially recognized as the end of the rule of the Turks, and in 1718 the entire Kingdom of Hungary was removed from Ottoman rule.

The 19th century was dominated by the Hungarian struggle for independence and modernization. Between 1851 and 1910 the proportion of Hungarians increased from 35.6% to 85.9%, Hungarian became the dominant language, and German was crowded out.

The proportion of Jews peaked in 1900 with 23.6%. Due to the prosperity and the large Jewish community of the city at the start of the 20th century, Budapest was often called the “Jewish Mecca” or “Judapest”. Budapest also became an important center for the Aromanian diaspora during the 19th century. Between 20% and 40% of Greater Budapest’s 250,000 Jewish inhabitants died through Nazi and Arrow Cross Party, during the German occupation of Hungary, from 1944 to early 1945.

Following the capture of Hungary from Nazi Germany by the Red Army, Soviet military occupation ensued, which ended only in 1991. The Soviets exerted significant influence on Hungarian political affairs. In 1949, Hungary was declared a communist People’s Republic (People’s Republic of Hungary).

In the 1980s, the city’s population reached 2.1 million. In recent times a significant decrease in population occurred mainly due to a massive movement to the neighboring agglomeration in Pest county, suburbanization.

In the last decades of the 20th century the political changes of 1989–90 (Fall of the Iron Curtain) concealed changes in civil society and along the streets of Budapest. The monuments of the dictatorship were removed from public places, into Memento Park.

Elevation: 102 m

Climate: Humid temperate climate. Average annual temperature in Budapest is 11 C (51 F), the average for July is 21 C (70 F), the average for January is -1 C (30 F).

Attractions: Fisherman’s Bastion, Danube River, Mathias Church, Buda Castle, Margaret Island, Vargheny, Szechenyi Lanchid

Airports: Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport BUD

Distance To City Centre: 25 km

Commute Length: 35 min

Average Transportation Cost: 35 EUR

Traffic Hours: 7:30 am – 9:30 am, 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm