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Travel to Hungary — Unbiased reviews and
great deals from TripAdvisorHungary
| Republic of Hungary National
name: Magyar Köztársaság President: László Sólyom
(2005) Prime Minister: Ferenc
Gyurcsány (2004)
Current government officials
Land area: 35,653 sq mi (92,341 sq km);
total area: 35,919 sq mi (93,030 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 9,930,915 (growth
rate: –0.2%); birth rate: 9.5/1000; infant mortality rate:
8.0/1000; life expectancy: 73.1; density per sq km: 107
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Budapest, 2,597,000 (metro. area), 1,769,500
(city proper) Other large cities:
Debrecen, 210,500; Miskolc, 182,600; Szeged, 173,200; Pécs,
163,900 Monetary unit: Forint
Languages:
Magyar (Hungarian) 94%, other 6%
Ethnicity/race:
Hungarian 92.3%, Roma 1.9%, other or unknown
5.8% (2001)
Religions:
Roman Catholic 52%, Calvinist 16%, Lutheran 3%,
Greek Catholic 3%, other Christian 1%, unaffiliated 15% (2001)
National Holiday:
Saint Stephen's Day, August 20 Literacy rate: 99% (2003 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$194.2 billion; per capita $19,500. Real growth rate: 2.1%.
Inflation: 7.8%. Unemployment: 7.1%. Arable land:
50%. Agriculture: wheat, corn, sunflower seed, potatoes,
sugar beets; pigs, cattle, poultry, dairy products. Labor force:
4.19 million; agriculture 5.5%, industry 33.3%, services 61.2%
(2003). Industries: mining, metallurgy, construction materials,
processed foods, textiles, chemicals (especially pharmaceuticals),
motor vehicles. Natural resources: bauxite, coal, natural gas,
fertile soils, arable land. Exports: $85.73 billion f.o.b.
(2007 est.): machinery and equipment 61.1%, other manufactures 28.7%,
food products 6.5%, raw materials 2%, fuels and electricity 1.6%
(2003). Imports: $85.99 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): machinery
and equipment 51.6%, other manufactures 35.7%, fuels and electricity
7.7%, food products 3.1%, raw materials 2.0% (2003). Major trading
partners: Germany, Austria, France, Italy, UK, Romania, Poland,
Russia, Netherlands (2006). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 3.35 million (2006); mobile cellular: 9.965 million (2006).
Radio broadcast stations: AM 17, FM 57, shortwave 3 (1998).
Television broadcast stations: 35 (plus 161 low-power
repeaters) (1995). Internet hosts: 2.313 million (2007).
Internet users: 3.5 million (2006). Transportation: Railways: total: 8,057 km
(2006). Highways: total: 159,568 km; paved: 70,050 km
(including 533 km of expressways); unpaved: 89,518 km (2006).
Waterways: 1,622 km (most on Danube River) (2007). Ports and
harbors: Budapest, Dunaujvaros, Gyor-Gonyu, Csepel, Baja, Mohacs
(2003). Airports: 46 (2007). International disputes: in 2004, Hungary
amended the status law extending special social and cultural benefits
and voted down a referendum to extend dual citizenship to ethnic
Hungarians living in neighboring states, which have objected to such
measures; consultations continue in 2006 between Slovakia and Hungary
over Hungary's completion of its portion the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros
hydroelectric dam project along the Danube; as a member state that
forms part of the EU's external border, Hungary must implement the
strict Schengen border rules.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
This central European country is the size of
Indiana. Most of Hungary is a fertile, rolling plain lying east of the
Danube River and drained by the Danube and Tisza rivers. In the extreme
northwest is the Little Hungarian Plain. South of that area is Lake
Balaton (250 sq mi; 648 sq km).
Government
Parliamentary democracy.
History
By 14 B.C., western
Hungary was part of the Roman Empire's provinces of Pannonia and Dacia.
The area east of the Danube was never part of the Roman Empire and was
largely occupied by various Germanic and Asiatic peoples. In 896 all of
Hungary was invaded by the Magyars, who founded a kingdom. Christianity
was accepted during the reign of Stephen I (St. Stephen), 977–1038.
A devastating invasion by the Mongols killed half of Hungary's population
in 1241. The peak of Hungary's great period of medieval power came during
the reign of Louis I the Great (1342–1382), whose dominions touched
the Baltic, Black, and Mediterranean seas. War with the Turks broke out in
1389, and for more than 100 years the Turks advanced through the Balkans.
When the Turks smashed a Hungarian army in 1526, western and northern
Hungary accepted Hapsburg rule to escape Turkish occupation. Transylvania
became independent under Hungarian princes. Intermittent war with the
Turks was waged until a peace treaty was signed in 1699.
After the suppression of the 1848 revolt, led by
Louis Kossuth, against Hapsburg rule, the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary
was set up in 1867. The dual monarchy was defeated, along with the other
Central Powers, in World War I. After a short-lived republic in 1918, the
chaotic Communist rule of 1919 under Béla Kun ended with the
Romanians occupying Budapest on Aug. 4, 1919. When the Romanians left,
Adm. Nicholas Horthy entered the capital with a national army. The Treaty
of Trianon of June 4, 1920, by which the Allies parceled out Hungarian
territories, cost Hungary 68% of its land and 58% of its population.
In World War II, Hungary allied with Germany,
which aided the country in recovering lost territories. Following the
German invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941, Hungary joined the attack
against the Soviet Union, but withdrew in defeat from the eastern front by
May 1943. Germany occupied the country for the remainder of the war and
set up a puppet government. Hungarian Jews and Gypsies were sent to death
camps. The German regime was driven out by the Soviets in
1944–1945.
By the Treaty of Paris (1947), Hungary had to
give up all territory it had acquired since 1937 and to pay $300 million
in reparations to the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. In 1948, the
Communist Party, with the support of Soviet troops, seized control.
Hungary was proclaimed a People's Republic and one-party state in 1949.
Industry was nationalized, the land collectivized into state farms, and
the opposition terrorized by the secret police. The terror, modeled after
that of the USSR, reached its height with the trial and life imprisonment
of József Cardinal Mindszenty, the leader of Hungary's Roman
Catholics, in 1948. On Oct. 23, 1956, an anti-Communist revolution broke
out in Budapest. To cope with it, the Communists set up a coalition
government and called former prime minister Imre Nagy back to head the
government. But he and most of his ministers sympathized with the
anti-Communist opposition, and he declared Hungary a neutral power,
withdrawing from the Warsaw Treaty and appealing to the United Nations for
help. One of his ministers, János Kádár, established
a counterregime and asked the USSR to send in military power. Soviet
troops and tanks suppressed the revolution in bloody fighting after
190,000 people had fled the country. Under Kádár
(1956–1988), Communist Hungary maintained more liberal policies in
the economic and cultural spheres, and Hungary became the most liberal of
the Soviet-bloc nations of eastern Europe. Continuing his program of
national reconciliation, Kádár emptied prisons, reformed the
secret police, and eased travel restrictions.
In 1989, Hungary's Communists abandoned their
monopoly on power voluntarily, and the constitution was amended in Oct.
1989 to allow for a multiparty state. The last Soviet troops left Hungary
in June 1991, thereby ending almost 47 years of military presence. The
transition to a market economy proved difficult. In April 1999, Hungary
became part of NATO, and in May 2004, it joined the EU. In 2006, Prime
Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was reelected on a platform promising
economic “reform without austerity.” In September, a tape was
leaked to the media on which Prime Minister Gyurcsany admited that he
blatantly lied about the state of the economy to win reelection.
Antigovernment demonstrators rioted and demanded his resignation.
In November 2008, the IMF extended a $25 billion
rescue package to Hungary to help its battered currency and stockmarket
during the global financial crisis.
See also Encyclopedia: Hungary.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Hungary
Hungarian Central Statistical Office portal.ksh.hu/portal/page?_pageid=38,119919_dad=portal_schema=PORTAL .
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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