Hungary

Hungary: capital Budapest, population 9.5M, area 93,028 km². The 96th most populous country, in Europe. Facts, map, neighbours and more.

Hungary's medieval kingdom grew from the Magyar settlement of the Carpathian Basin and Stephen I's coronation around 1000. Budapest took its present name when Buda, Óbuda and Pest united in 1873; its Parliament later rose to 96 metres beside the Danube. A 44-letter alphabet treats digraphs and a trigraph as letters, while village dance-house practice, masked Busós and a puzzle that took its inventor a month to solve carry other parts of the story.

• Magyar groups crossed into the Carpathian Basin around 895 and occupied Pannonia by 900; the conquest created the territorial base of medieval Hungary.
• Crowned around 1000, Stephen I organized royal counties around fortresses and established at least one archbishopric and six bishoprics for the new kingdom.
• The Golden Bull of 1222 was issued in seven copies and gave royal servants a right to resist the king if he acted unlawfully.
• Buda, Óbuda and Pest were officially united in 1873 under the name Budapest, initially forming ten municipal districts on both banks of the Danube.

• John von Neumann wrote the 101-page First Draft on the EDVAC, distributed on 30 June 1945, the first published description of a stored-program computer's logical design.
• Ernő Rubik built his first 27-block wooden cube in 1974 to explore three-dimensional movement; after scrambling it, he needed a month to find the solution.
• Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for nucleoside modifications that enabled effective mRNA vaccines.
• Béla Bartók helped found comparative musicology by collecting and analysing folk music; his own catalogue includes Bluebeard's Castle and six string quartets.

• Budapest's Parliament opened in 1902; its 96-metre dome alludes to the year 896, and its interior contains 691 rooms and 29 staircases.
• The Széchenyi Chain Bridge opened in 1849 as the first permanent bridge across the Danube in Hungary, linking Buda and Pest before their municipal union.
• Pannonhalma Archabbey was founded in 996; its library now holds roughly 400,000 volumes, and the monastic complex entered UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1996.
• Lake Balaton covers about 600 square kilometres yet averages only 3.3 metres deep, making Central Europe's largest lake unusually shallow for its breadth.

• The 44-letter Hungarian alphabet includes eight digraphs and the trigraph dzs; each combination is treated as one letter rather than separate characters.
• Mohács's Busójárás lasts six days around the end of Carnival, filling the streets with carved masks, music and parades; UNESCO listed it in 2009.
• The táncház revival began in the early 1970s, turning researched village dances and live folk music into informal urban ‘dance houses’ where participants learn by joining in.
• Tokaji wine uses grapes affected by noble rot; the resulting sweet ‘nectar of Tokaj’ is mentioned in Hungary's national anthem.

What is the capital of Hungary?

The capital of Hungary is Budapest.

What is the population of Hungary?

Hungary has about 9.5M people — the 96th most populous country in the world.

How big is Hungary?

Hungary covers 93,028 km², making it the 108th largest country by area.

Which region is Hungary in?

Hungary is in Central Europe, Europe.