Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and Slovenia to the southwest, and Austria to the west. Hungary lies within the drainage basin of the Danube River and is dominated by great lowland plains. It has a population of 9.6 million, consisting mostly of ethnic Hungarians and a significant Romani minority. Hungarian is the official language, and among the few in Europe outside the Indo-European family. Budapest is the country's capital and largest city, and the dominant cultural and economic centre.
Prior to the foundation of the Hungarian state, various peoples settled in the territory of present-day Hungary, including the Celts, Romans, Huns, Germanic peoples, Avars and Slavs. Hungarian statehood is traced to the Principality of Hungary, which was established in the late ninth century by Álmos and his son Árpád through the conquest of the Carpathian Basin. King Stephen I ascended the throne in 1000 and converted his realm to a Christian kingdom. The medieval Kingdom of Hungary was a European power, reaching its height in the Late Middle Ages.
After a long period of Ottoman wars, Hungary’s forces were defeated at the Battle of Mohács in 1526 and its capital Buda was captured in 1541, opening a period of more than 150 years where the country was divided into three parts: Royal Hungary (loyal to the Habsburgs), Ottoman Hungary and the largely independent Principality of Transylvania. The Ottomans recognized the loss of Ottoman Hungary by the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Most of Hungary was reunited and came under Habsburg rule by the turn of the 18th century.
Wars of independence against the Habsburgs in 1703–1711 and 1848–1849 resulted in a compromise that established the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1867, a major power in the early 20th century. Austria-Hungary collapsed after World War I, and the subsequent Treaty of Trianon in 1920 established Hungary's current borders, resulting in the loss of 71% of its historical territory, majority of its economy, 58% of its population, and 32% of its ethnic Hungarians.
Reeling from the aftermath of the war, Hungary endured turmoil in the early interwar period, culminating in the nationalist conservative regime of Regent ruler Miklós Horthy. Hungary joined the Axis powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. It was occupied by the Soviet Union, which established the Hungarian People's Republic as a satellite state. Following the failed 1956 revolution, Hungary became comparatively freer but remained a repressed member of the Eastern Bloc. As part of the Revolutions of 1989, Hungary peacefully transitioned into a democratic parliamentary republic. It joined the European Union in 2004 and the Schengen Area since 2007. Since the election of Viktor Orbán in 2010, Hungary has undergone democratic backsliding and become an illiberal democracy and hybrid regime.
Hungary is a high-income economy with universal health care and tuition-free secondary education. Hungary has a long history of significant contributions to arts, music, literature, sports, science and technology. It is a popular tourist destination in Europe, drawing 24.5 million international visitors in 2019. Hungary is a member of numerous international organisations, including the Council of Europe, European Union, NATO, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, World Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Visegrád Group. (Full article...)
Edward Teller (Hungarian: Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian and American theoretical physicist and chemical engineer who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and one of the creators of the Teller–Ulam design based on Stanisław Ulam's design.
Born in Austria-Hungary in 1908, Teller emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, one of the many so-called "Martians", a group of prominent Hungarian scientist émigrés. He made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy (in particular the Jahn–Teller and Renner–Teller effects), and surface physics. His extension of Enrico Fermi's theory of beta decay, in the form of Gamow–Teller transitions, provided an important stepping stone in its application, while the Jahn–Teller effect and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) theory have retained their original formulation and are still mainstays in physics and chemistry. (Full article...)
Béla Kun (Hungarian: Kun Béla, born Béla Kohn; 20 February 1886 – 29 August 1938) was a Hungarian communist revolutionary and politician who governed the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. After attending Franz Joseph University at Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania), Kun worked as a journalist up until the First World War. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army and was captured by the Imperial Russian Army in 1916, after which he was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Urals. Kun embraced communist ideas during his time in Russia, and in 1918 he co-founded a Hungarian arm of the Russian Communist Party in Moscow. He befriended Vladimir Lenin and fought for the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War.
In November 1918, Kun returned to Hungary with Soviet support and set up the Party of Communists in Hungary. Adopting Lenin's tactics, he agitated against the government of Mihály Károlyi and achieved great popularity despite being imprisoned. After his release in March 1919, Kun led a successful coup d'état, formed a Communist-Social Democratic coalition government and proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Though the de jure leader of the republic was prime minister Sándor Garbai, the de facto power was in the hands of foreign minister Kun, who maintained direct contact with Lenin via radiotelegraph and received direct orders and advice from the Kremlin. (Full article...)
Béla Bartók – János Bihari – Ernő Dohnányi – Béni Egressy – Ferenc Erkel – Zoltán Kocsis – Zoltán Kodály – Franz Liszt - Eugene Ormandy - George Szell - András Schiff
Gyula Benczúr – Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka – Béla Czóbel – Árpád Feszty – Károly Lotz – Viktor Madarász – Mihály Munkácsy – József Rippl-Rónai – Pál Szinyei Merse – István Szőnyi – Victor Vasarely
Brassaï – Cornell Capa – Robert Capa – Lucien Hervé – André Kertész – László Moholy-Nagy – Martin Munkácsi
Béla H. Bánáthy – Zoltán Bay – Georg von Békésy – Farkas Bolyai – János Bolyai – Károly Bund – József Eötvös – Loránd Eötvös – Dennis Gabor – John Charles Harsanyi – George de Hevesy – Alexander Csoma de Kőrös – László Lovász – John von Neumann – George Andrew Olah – Ernő Rubik – Hans Selye – Ignaz Semmelweis – Charles Simonyi – János Szentágothai – Albert Szent-Györgyi – Leó Szilárd – Edward Teller – Eugene Wigner
Endre Ady – János Arany – József Eötvös – György Faludy – Béla Hamvas – Mór Jókai – Attila József – Ferenc Kazinczy – Imre Kertész – János Kodolányi – Ferenc Kölcsey – Imre Madách – Sándor Márai – Ferenc Molnár – Sándor Petőfi – Miklós Radnóti – Magda Szabó – Antal Szerb – Miklós Vámos – Mihály Vörösmarty
Gyula Andrássy – Lajos Batthyány – Gabriel Bethlen – Stephen Bocskay – Matthias Corvinus – Ferenc Deák – Miklós Horthy – Lajos Kossuth – Ferenc Nagy – Imre Nagy – Bertalan Szemere – István Széchenyi – Miklós Wesselényi – Vilmos Nagy of Nagybaczon
József Bozsik – Krisztina Egerszegi – Zoltán Gera – Dezső Gyarmati – Ágnes Keleti – Péter Lékó – Csaba Mérő – Tibor Nyilasi – László Papp – Judit Polgár – Zsuzsa Polgár – Ferenc Puskás
Nimród Antal – Michael Curtiz – John Garfield – Miklós Jancsó – Sir Alexander Korda – Peter Lorre – Béla Lugosi – Emeric Pressburger – Miklós Rózsa – Andy G. Vajna – Gábor Zsazsa
The Count of the Székelys (Hungarian: székelyispán, Latin: comes Sicolorum) was the leader of the Hungarian-speaking Székelys in Transylvania, in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. First mentioned in royal charters of the 13th century, the counts were the highest-ranking royal officials in Székely Land. From around 1320 to the second half of the 15th century, the counts' jurisdiction included four Transylvanian Saxon districts, in addition to the seven Székely seats (or administrative units).
The counts also held important castles outside the territories under their administration, including their seat at Görgény (now Gurghiu in Romania). They were the supreme commanders of the Székely troops; their military campaigns against Bulgaria and the Golden Horde were mentioned in royal charters and medieval chronicles. The counts presided over the general assemblies of both the individual Székely seats and the entire Székely community. They also heard appeals of the decisions of the supreme court of Székely Land. (Full article...)
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