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Budapest
Flag of Budapest
Flag
Official seal of Budapest
Seal
Nickname(s): 
Paris of the East",
"Pearl of the Danube"
or "Queen of the Danube
Location of Budapest in Hungary
Location of Budapest in Hungary
Country
  County		Hungary / E.U.
  none
Government
 • MayorGábor Demszky (SZDSZ)
Population
 (2005)
 • Total
1,695,000
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)
Websitewww.budapest.hu

Budapest (pronounced [ˌbjuːdə'pest], [ˌbuːdə'pest], ['buːdəpest], Hungarian ['budɑpɛʃt]) is the capital city of Hungary and the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial and transportation center.

Budapest has approximately 1.7 million inhabitants, down from a mid-1980s peak of 2.1 million. Budapest became a single city occupying both banks of the river Danube with the amalgamation on 17 November 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 seventh largest city in the European Union.

History

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. Aquincum was the base camp of Legio II Adiutrix. The area of Campona (today's Nagytétény) belongs to Buda as well. Today's Pest became the site of Contra Aquincum (or Trans Aquincum), a smaller sentry point. The word Pest (or Peshta) is thought to originate from the Bolgar language, (thought to be a Turkic language, not related to modern Bulgarian, which is a Slavic language) because at the time of the reign of the Bulgarian Khan Krum, the town was under Bulgar dominion. The area then became a homeland for the Avars and some Slavic peoples.

Budapest from Gellért Hill, looking North
Parliament building
Széchenyi Chain Bridge

The area was occupied around the year 900 by the Magyars of Central Asia, the cultural and linguistic ancestors of today's ethnic Hungarians, who a century later officially 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: Buda and Pest fell to the invaders in 1541. While Buda remained the seat of a Turkish pasha, and administrative center of a whole vilayet, Pest was largely derelict by the time of their recapture in 1686 by Austria's Habsburg rulers, who since 1526 had been Kings of Hungary despite their loss of most of the country.

It was Pest, a bustling commercial town, which enjoyed the faster growth rate in the 18th and 19th century and contributed the overwhelming majority of the cities' combined growth in the 19th. By 1800 its population was larger than that of Buda and Óbuda combined. The population of Pest grew twentyfold in the following century to 600,000, while that of Buda and Óbuda quintupled.

The fusion of the three cities 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; see Austria-Hungary. The total population 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 between 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 two thirds 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.

Between 20% and 40% of Greater Budapest's 250,000 Jewish inhabitants died through Nazi and Arrow Cross genocide during 1944 and early 1945. [1], [2] Despite this, Budapest today has the highest number of Jewish citizens per capita of any European city.

On January 1, 1950, the area of Budapest was significantly expanded: new districts were formed from the neighbouring cities and towns (see Great-Budapest). 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 (mostly to the agglomeration) coupled with natural population decrease.

Demographic history

Population Graph

Districts of Budapest

Main article: List of districts and towns in Budapest

Budapest's districts are numbered clockwise, in widening circles, and are organized similarly to the arrondissements in Metropolitan Paris.

Originally Budapest had 10 districts after coming into existence upon the unification of the three cities in 1873. On 1 January 1950 Budapest was united with several neighboring towns and the number of its districts was raised to 22. At that time there were changes both in the order of districts and in their sizes. Now there are 23 districts, 6 in Buda, 16 in Pest and 1 on an island between them. Each district can be associated with one or more city parts named after former towns within Budapest.


Landmarks and monuments

File:Matthias Church budapest.jpg
Matthias Church
St. Stephen's Basilica, Pest
(The below sights are grouped by location.)

Transport

Airport

Budapest Ferihegy International Airport, which has 3 different passenger terminals: Ferihegy 1, Ferihegy 2/A and Ferihegy 2/B. The airport is located to the east of the centre in the XVIII. district in Pestszentlőrinc. Malév (Hungarian Airlines) had begun to change its aircraft in 2003, and by 2005 owned the most modern fleet in Europe.

Roads

Budapest is the most important Hungarian road terminus; all the major highways end there. Between 1990-1994, the city street names were reverted back to their late 19th century names, which were changed under the Soviet occupation. Budapest is also a major railway terminus.

Budapest Keleti (Eastern) Railway Station
The old ticket hall at Keleti (Eastern) Railway Station
Budapest Funicular

Railway

Main articles: MÁV, HÉV

Hungarian main-line railways are operated by MÁV. There are three main railway termini in Budapest, Keleti (eastern), Nyugati (western), and Déli (southern), operating both domestic and international rail services. Budapest was one of the main stops of the Orient Express until 2001, when the service was cut back to Paris-Vienna.

There is also a suburban rail service in and around Budapest, operated under the name HÉV.

Subway

Main articles: Budapest Metro, List of Budapest metro stations.

The Budapest Subway system is the oldest subway in Continental Europe (the shallow M1 line was operational in 1896). The original subway line is now the M1 or Yellow line. It was fully restored to its original condition, for a historical ride. Two other lines, the M2 (red) and M3 (blue), were built later and serve other parts of the city. The M4 is currently under construction and the M5 is expected to be started in 2007. Both lines M2 and M4 will be fully automated and operate without drivers. The Budapest Subway was the scene of the 2004 film Kontroll.

Waterways

The river Danube flows through Budapest on its way to the Black Sea. The river is easily navigable and so Budapest has historically been a major commercial port (at Csepel).

Special vehicles

Beside metros, suburban rails, buses, trams and boats, there are a couple of less usual vehicles in Budapest:

The latter three vehicles run among Buda hills.

Cemeteries

The most famous of them is Kerepesi Cemetery, one of the biggest national pantheons in Europe, where several Hungarian notables are buried in ornate monuments. The second most significant may be Farkasréti Cemetery, including the graves of further illustrious people.

The largest cemetery in Budapest (and one of the largest ones in Europe) is Új köztemető (New Public Cemetery); it comprises an area of about 2.07 km². The biggest Jewish cemetery in Hungary is Kozma utcai Jewish Cemetery with the monument of 600,000 Jewish martyrs.

Important figures

Sister cities

See also

General information

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Budapest.

Information for tourists

Picture galleries

Miscellaneous

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