Hungary is a republic in south-eastern Central Europe with (2018) 9.8 million residents; The capital is Budapest.

Budapest, capital of Hungary, with (2018) 1.75 million residents, located on both sides of the Danube.

According to Agooddir, Budapest emerged in 1873 from the independent cities of Pest (on the left bank of the Danube) and Buda (on the right bank of the Danube). Castle district and the waterfront of the narrow old town of Pest are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Many of the more recent splendid buildings, especially on the Danube quay, are reminiscent of the city’s heyday in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Budapest is the most important industrial city and the cultural center (several universities, museums, national theater, state opera) of Hungary. Budapest is a popular city trip destination; its thermal springs are known (“spa town”).

History

Budapest, formed in 1873 through the merger of Buda, Óbuda and Pest, goes back to the settlements of the Illyrian-Celtic Araviski and the Roman legionary camp Aquincum in the north of today’s city, which received city rights in 124 AD and after 184 the residence of the governors of the province of Pannonia was inferior. The Magyars built their first ruling center here (castle of Prince Kurszán , a companion of Árpád). In 1241 Buda and Pest were destroyed by the Mongols. King Béla IV (1235–70) had the first royal castle built on Castle Hill in Buda in 1247, which had functioned as a permanent residence since the middle of the 14th century, and was finally raised by King Matthias I Corvinus (1458-90). With the granting of staple rights in 1347 and a university founded in 1395 (until around 1450), Buda developed into the most important city in Hungary (the center of Hungarian humanism at the end of the 15th century). Pest, on the left bank of the Danube, rose to become an important trading town; a university had already been founded here in 1387. In the Árpáden period, Óbuda was considered the city of queens (heyday with the court in the 14th and 15th centuries).

After the Turkish conquest (Pest 1526, Buda 1541), Buda was the seat of a pasha. The emigration of German and Hungarian city dwellers led to decay and desolation; Serbs and Jews immigrated. Even after the liberation from Turkish rule in 1686, Pressburg (Pozsony in Hungarian, Bratislava in Slovak) remained the capital; only a few authorities were relocated to the city, and the university, founded in Tyrnau in 1635, only started work in Buda in 1777 and in Pest in 1783. An economic and cultural boom did not begin until the second half of the 18th century, with Pest developing faster than Buda. Pest became the spiritual and political center of the country in the Vormärz in 1848. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/49 Budapest was occupied twice by the Austrians.

In the districts of the city that were firmly connected by the Chain Bridge for the first time since 1849 (at that time around 156,000 residents), there was a strong development after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the official union of Buda, Óbuda and Pest in Budapest in 1872 from January 1st, 1873 Growth (1910: 880,000 residents; expansion of new districts); the number of residents rose to 1.2 million by 1920. Since 1918 the capital of independent Hungary, the city suffered severe destruction in the Second World War (1944/45 occupied by German troops) and during the Hungarian uprising in October / November 1956; In 1950 the industrial suburbs in the north and south of Budapest were incorporated.

In the 1990s, strong growth began on the periphery and beyond the city limits, where industry and commerce, large-scale retail and residential construction are relocating.

Debrecen

Debrecen [-tsεn], Slovak Debreczin [-tsi ː n], administrative seat of the district Hájdú-Bihar in northeastern Hungary, in the northern Tisza lowlands, with (2018) 202,200 residents second largest city in Hungary.

Debrecen is the cultural, economic and transport center of north-east Hungary; Calvist center and seat of the Catholic diocese Debrecen-Nyíregyháza; University; Mechanical engineering, automotive supply, chemical, pharmaceutical, electronic (communication technology) and textile industries, traditional food, tobacco and furniture industries; Thermal bath; Airport.

Reformed “large church” (1805–19), built over a medieval predecessor building, facade richly structured; In the library of the college (new building after fire 1804-06) you can find valuable manuscripts and incunabula in addition to a biblical collection. Also noteworthy are the Small Reformed Church (1726, rebuilt in 1870), the classicist town hall (1842/43), the historicist Csokonai Theater (1861–65) as well as buildings from the transition phase from historicism to art nouveau; Déri Museum (East Asian and ancient art, folk art, art of the 15th – 20th centuries).

Debrecen, first mentioned in 1211, received city rights in 1360. As the center of the Calvinist Reformation in Southeastern Europe, it was called “Calvinist Rome”. From January to July 1849 Debrecen was the seat of the revolutionary government of L. Kossuth, who proclaimed Hungary’s independence on April 14, 1849, and from December 1944 to March 1945 the seat of the provisional government (B. Dálnoki-Miklós).