Hungary

By Prof. Raju Vatsavayi

Name

Official name	Hungary — Magyarország; the Republic of Hungary from 1989 to 2011
Former names	The Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1918, 1920–1946); Austria-Hungary (1867–1918); the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989)
Demonym	Hungarian; Magyar
Meaning of the name	Magyar, the people's own name, from the Ugric "man"; Hungary from the Onogurs, "ten arrows," a Turkic people of the steppe
Motto	None official — "Regnum Mariae Patrona Hungariae," the kingdom of Mary, patroness of Hungary, the old one

Quick facts

Capital	Budapest — Buda, Pest and Óbuda united 17 November 1873; about 1.7 million, 3 million in the region
Largest cities	Budapest; Debrecen, about 200,000; Szeged; Miskolc; Pécs; Győr; Nyíregyháza; Kecskemét; Székesfehérvár
Official language	Hungarian — a Uralic language, related only to Finnish and Estonian among the languages of Europe; German, Croatian, Slovak, Romanian, Romani and others as minority languages
Currency	Hungarian forint — ISO code HUF, Ft; about 360 to the U.S. dollar, 400 to the euro; no euro date set
Time zone	Central European Time, UTC+1; summer time UTC+2
Calling code	+36
Internet domain	.hu
ISO 3166 codes	HU · HUN · 348
Vehicle registration code	H
Driving side	Right — since 1941
Electricity	230 V, 50 Hz; plug types C and F
Founded	The conquest of the Carpathian Basin, 895–896; the kingdom, 25 December 1000 — St. Stephen crowned; the republic, 23 October 1989
National days	20 August, St. Stephen's Day — the state foundation; 15 March, for the revolution of 1848; 23 October, for the revolution of 1956 and the republic of 1989; 1 May; the Christian feasts; 4 June, the Day of National Unity, for Trianon
Constitution	1 January 2012 — the Fundamental Law of Hungary, adopted 25 April 2011 by the Fidesz two-thirds and amended fifteen times since; replacing the constitution of 1949 as rewritten in 1989; Tisza's two-thirds since 2026 enough to amend it
Population	9,603,634 at the census of 2022; about 9.5 million (KSH, 2025 est.) — falling since 1981
Area	93,028 km² (35,918 sq mi) — land 89,608 km², water 3,420 km²; landlocked

Flag & national symbols

National flag	A horizontal tricolor of red, white and green — strength, faithfulness and hope, in the colors of the medieval arms — carried by the revolution of 1848 and adopted by the law of that year; the communist arms of 1949 cut from its center by the crowds of 1956, the hole in the flag the revolution's emblem; the plain tricolor since 1957, in the Fundamental Law.Flag of Hungary
Coat of arms	A shield divided: the Árpád stripes of red and silver on the left, the silver double cross on a green triple mount on the right, under the Holy Crown of St. Stephen with its bent cross — the arms of the kingdom, restored 3 July 1990
National anthem	"Himnusz" — "Isten, áldd meg a magyart," God bless the Hungarians — words by Ferenc Kölcsey, 1823, music by Ferenc Erkel, 1844; the anthem by custom from 1844 and by the Constitution since 1989; the "Szózat" of Vörösmarty the second anthem
National colors	Red, white and green
The Holy Crown	The Crown of St. Stephen — the crown of the kings since the 12th century, the symbol of the state in the Fundamental Law, kept in the Parliament since 2000, returned by the United States in 1978
National bird	The turul — the mythical falcon of the Magyars' origin, on the monuments; the great bustard the living one; widely cited
National flower	The tulip — of the folk art and the Turkish years; widely cited
National dish	Gulyás — goulash, the herdsmen's soup of beef and paprika; pörkölt; the paprika of Szeged and Kalocsa; the Tokaji wine; the pálinka; widely cited
Symbol status	The flag, arms and anthem are fixed by the Fundamental Law; the Crown by the Fundamental Law; the bird, flower and dishes are widely cited

Geography

Location	Central Europe — the Carpathian Basin, landlocked among seven neighbors: Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia
Land borders	2,106 km (1,309 mi) with seven countries — Slovakia 627, Romania 424, Croatia 348, Austria 321, Serbia 164, Ukraine 128, Slovenia 94; the fence of 2015 along the Serbian and Croatian lines
Coastline	None — landlocked; Fiume, now Rijeka, its port until 1918
Highest point	Kékes, 1,014 m (3,327 ft), in the Mátra
Lowest point	The Tisza near Szeged, 78 m (256 ft)
Mean elevation	143 m (469 ft)
The Danube	417 km (259 mi) through the country of its 2,850 — the Danube Bend at Visegrád, the capital, the Csepel island, the border with Slovakia along 140 km; the second river of Europe, and the country's highway
Other rivers	The Tisza, 597 km in Hungary, the river of the Great Plain, regulated in the 19th century; the Drava on the Croatian border; the Rába; the Körös; the Sió from Balaton
Lakes	Balaton, 592 km², the largest in Central Europe, the "Hungarian sea," 77 km long and shallow; Lake Tisza, the reservoir; Fertő — Neusiedl — shared with Austria; Hévíz, the largest thermal lake in the world that can be bathed in, 4.4 hectares at 38°C
Terrain	The Great Plain — the Alföld — over half the country, the puszta of the Hortobágy; the Little Plain of the northwest; Transdanubia's hills west of the Danube with Balaton and the Bakony; the Northern Hills — the Mátra, the Bükk, the Zemplén of Tokaj
Climate	Continental — cold winters, hot summers; about 600 mm of rain; the drought of the Plain
Natural hazards	Floods of the Danube and Tisza — 2013, 2024; the red-sludge disaster of Ajka, 4 October 2010, ten dead; drought; earthquakes rare
Natural resources	Bauxite, once the largest in Europe; coal and lignite at Mátra; natural gas; the thermal waters — some 1,300 springs; the farmland of the Plain
Land use	Agricultural land about 59% — among the highest shares in Europe; forest about 23%
National parks	10 — Hortobágy, the first, 1973, the puszta of the grey cattle and the cranes; Kiskunság; Bükk; Aggtelek, the caves; Fertő-Hanság; Duna-Dráva; Körös-Maros; Balaton Uplands; Duna-Ipoly; Őrség
UNESCO World Heritage	9 — Budapest, the banks of the Danube, the Buda Castle Quarter and Andrássy Avenue (1987, 2002); the old village of Hollókő (1987); the caves of Aggtelek and the Slovak Karst (1995, shared); the millenary abbey of Pannonhalma (1996); Hortobágy National Park (1999); the early Christian necropolis of Pécs (2000); the Fertő cultural landscape (2001, shared); the Tokaj wine region (2002); the Danube Limes of the Roman frontier (2021, shared)
Administrative divisions	19 counties — vármegyék, the medieval name restored in 2023 — and the capital; 174 districts; 3,155 municipalities

People

Population	9,603,634 (census of 2022); about 9.5 million (2025 est.)
Population density	About 102 per km² (265 per sq mi)
Population growth	About −0.3% a year — the peak of 10.7 million in 1980; deaths above births since 1981
Median age	About 44 years
Life expectancy	About 77 years
Fertility rate	About 1.4 births per woman — about 1.6 at the peak of the family subsidies of the 2010s
Urban population	About 73%
Adult literacy	About 99%
Ethnic groups	Hungarian about 85% of those who answered; Roma about 3% declared and up to 8% by estimate, the largest minority; German about 2%; Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, Ukrainian and others; about 13% giving no answer (census of 2022)
Languages	Hungarian by about 99%; German, English and Russian as the learned languages by generation; Romani; the minority tongues in the villages
Religion	Roman Catholic about 30%; Reformed — Calvinist — about 10%; Lutheran about 2%; Greek Catholic about 2%; no religion about 16%, and 40% giving no answer (census of 2022)
Human Development Index	0.870 (2023 data, 2025 report) — very high; about 46th of 193
Hungarians abroad	About 2 million ethnic Hungarians in the neighboring countries after Trianon — about 1 million in Romania's Transylvania, 450,000 in Slovakia, 250,000 in Serbia's Vojvodina, 150,000 in Ukraine's Transcarpathia — with citizenship offered since 2011; the diaspora of the West, about 1.5 million in the United States by ancestry
Sport	Football — the Golden Team of Puskás in the 1950s, the 6–3 at Wembley in 1953, and the World Cup finals of 1938 and 1954; swimming and water polo — the most Olympic titles of any nation in water polo, Katinka Hosszú; fencing and kayak-canoe; the Hungarian Grand Prix since 1986; about 180 Olympic golds, the most of any country never to host the Games
Science	The Nobel laureates — about thirteen born in the country, from Szent-Györgyi and the vitamin C to Katalin Karikó of the mRNA vaccines in 2023; John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller; the Rubik's cube of 1974; the ballpoint pen of Bíró

Government

Form of government	Unitary parliamentary republic under the Fundamental Law of 2011 — the president a ceremonial head of state elected by parliament for five years; the prime minister head of government, elected by the National Assembly
Prime Minister	Péter Magyar (Tisza), since 9 May 2026 — the ninth since 1990; a lawyer, the president of Tisza since 22 July 2024, a member of the European Parliament 2024–26; born 16 March 1981 in Budapest; a member of Fidesz from 2002 to 2024 and the former husband of Orbán's justice minister Judit Varga; his government sworn in 12 May 2026 with Anita Orbán as deputy prime minister and foreign minister, András Kármán at finance, Bálint Ruff at the prime minister's office
President	András Baka (independent), since 19 August 2026 — the judge of the European Court of Human Rights and president of the Supreme Court whom the Orbán government removed in 2012 by rewriting the office, a removal the Strasbourg court condemned in 2016; elected by the new Assembly after Tamás Sulyok's term ended 19 July 2026, with Ágnes Forsthoffer, the speaker, acting president for a month; the sixth since 1990
The 2026 election	Held 12 April 2026: the Tisza Party 53.18% of the list vote and 141 of 199 seats; Fidesz–KDNP 38.61% and 52, down 83; Our Homeland 5.63% and 6; the others below the threshold; turnout 78.99% of 8,112,646 registered, a record; Tisza's two-thirds the first supermajority of any party but Fidesz since 1990 — Orbán conceded by telephone on the night; "tonight, truth prevailed over lies," Magyar told the crowd on the Danube
The Orbán era	Viktor Orbán prime minister 1998–2002 and 29 May 2010 to 9 May 2026 — four two-thirds majorities in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022; the Fundamental Law and its amendments, the courts and the media remade, the "illiberal state" of his own speech of 2014, the fence of 2015, the vetoes and the Russian and Chinese ties; the European Parliament's finding of 2022 that the country could no longer be considered a full democracy but an "electoral autocracy," and the €19 billion of EU funds frozen over the rule of law — in the words of the Parliament and the Commission; the pardon scandal of February 2024 that felled President Katalin Novák and set Magyar on his way
Parliament	The National Assembly — 199 members elected for four years, 106 in single-member districts and 93 by national list, since the reform of 2012; Ágnes Forsthoffer the speaker; Fidesz–KDNP the opposition
The next election	Due in April or May 2030
Legal system	Civil law; the Constitutional Court and the Kúria, the supreme court; the Strasbourg and Luxembourg courts' rulings of the 2010s against the state
Counties	19 with elected assemblies and government offices; Budapest with its mayor, Gergely Karácsony since 2019, and 23 districts
European Union	Member since 1 May 2004, with nine others; Schengen since 21 December 2007; not in the eurozone; the presidency of the Council in 2011 and July–December 2024; the funds frozen since 2022 and the new government's bid to release them
NATO	Member since 12 March 1999, with Poland and Czechia — the first enlargement after the Cold War
United Nations	Member since 14 December 1955
Other memberships	The Visegrád Group (1991) with Poland, Czechia and Slovakia; the OECD (1996), the Council of Europe (1990), the OSCE, the WTO

Economy

GDP (nominal)	About US$230 billion (2025, IMF)
GDP per capita	About US$24,000 (2025)
GDP per capita (PPP)	About US$47,000 (2025)
GDP growth	About 0.5–1% a year (2023–25) after the recession of 2023 — the inflation of 2023 above 25%, the highest in the EU, down to about 4%
Economy by sector	Services about 65%, industry about 27%, agriculture about 4%
Currency	Hungarian forint (HUF)
Cars	The car plants of the German makers — Audi at Győr, the largest engine plant in the world; Mercedes at Kecskemét; BMW at Debrecen from 2025; Suzuki at Esztergom; BYD's European plant at Szeged from 2026 — and the battery factories of CATL and Samsung SDI, the largest foreign investments in the country's history
Industry	Electronics and machinery; the pharmaceuticals of Richter; MOL, the oil company; the food of the Plain — the paprika, the wine of Tokaj and Eger, the Pick salami; Wizz Air
Trade	Exports about US$150 billion — cars, machinery, electronics — to Germany above all, about a quarter; the EU about 75% of trade; the Russian gas and oil by pipeline, kept through the sanctions
Energy	The Paks nuclear plant of four reactors, about half of electricity, with Rosatom's two new units under construction; solar rising fast, above 20%; the Russian gas of the TurkStream
Public finances	Public debt about 73% of GDP; the deficit above 4%; the windfall taxes of 2022–25; the EU funds of about €19 billion frozen since 2022 over the rule of law, the new government's first task
Income classification	High income (World Bank); an OECD member since 1996

Transport & infrastructure

Main airport	Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport — about 17 million passengers, bought back by the state in 2024; Debrecen; Hévíz-Balaton
Airline	Wizz Air, founded 2003 in Budapest — the largest low-cost carrier of Central and Eastern Europe; Malév, the national airline of 1946–2012, gone
Ports	No sea — the Danube ports of Budapest-Csepel, Győr-Gönyű and Baja; the Danube–Black Sea and Rhine–Main–Danube routes
Railways	About 7,900 km (4,900 mi) — MÁV; the Budapest–Belgrade line rebuilt with Chinese loans; the Budapest Metro, whose Line 1 of 1896 was the first underground railway on the European continent, four lines; the trams of Budapest with the longest trams in the world on Line 4–6
Roads	About 200,000 km (124,000 mi); the M1, M3, M5, M6 and M7 motorways from Budapest, about 1,900 km in all; the M0 ring
Baths	Budapest, the spa capital — Széchenyi, Gellért, Rudas of the Turks; some 120 thermal springs in the capital alone

History in dates

895–896	The Magyar conquest under Árpád
955	The Lechfeld — the raids on Europe end
1000	St. Stephen crowned, 25 December — the Christian kingdom
1222	The Golden Bull of Andrew II
1241	The Mongol invasion — half the population dead
1458–1490	Matthias Corvinus — the Renaissance king
1526	Mohács, 29 August — the Ottoman conquest
1541–1686	Buda Turkish; the country in three parts
1848	The revolution, 15 March — Kossuth; crushed 1849 with Russian help
1867	The Compromise — Austria-Hungary
1873	Budapest united
1896	The Millennium; the first metro on the continent
1920	The Treaty of Trianon, 4 June — two-thirds of the kingdom lost
1944	The German occupation, 19 March; some 565,000 Hungarian Jews murdered
1946	The republic, 1 February; the forint, 1 August, after the hyperinflation
1949	The People's Republic
1956	The revolution, 23 October; the Soviet tanks, 4 November; Imre Nagy hanged 1958
1989	The border with Austria opened, 27 June and 11 September; the republic, 23 October
1999	NATO, 12 March
2004	The European Union, 1 May
2010	Orbán's first two-thirds, 29 May
2012	The Fundamental Law, 1 January
2015	The fence on the Serbian border
2024	President Novák resigns, 10 February; Magyar founds Tisza
2026	The election of 12 April; Magyar prime minister, 9 May; Baka president, 19 August

Records & firsts

The first underground railway on the continent	Budapest, 1896
The largest lake in Central Europe	Balaton
The largest thermal lake for bathing	Hévíz
The worst hyperinflation in history	The pengő of 1946
A language with no neighbors	Hungarian, Uralic among the Indo-Europeans
The most Olympic golds without hosting	About 180
The Rubik's cube	Ernő Rubik, 1974
The ballpoint pen	László Bíró, 1938
The Holy Crown	A thousand years of kings
The first tear in the Iron Curtain	The Austrian border, 1989
Trianon	Two-thirds of a country lost in a day, 1920
A supermajority ended by a supermajority	12 April 2026

Frequently asked questions

What is the official name of Hungary?

Hungary — Magyarország — the plain name written into the Fundamental Law of 2011, replacing the Republic of Hungary of 1989, though the state remains a republic. The Hungarians are the Magyars, the people who crossed the Carpathians under Árpád in 895–896 and founded a Christian kingdom under St. Stephen in the year 1000; "Hungary" is the Latin Hungaria, from the Onogurs, a Turkic people the Magyars were confused with. The Kingdom of Hungary lasted, in name, until 1946.

What is the capital of Hungary?

Budapest, on both banks of the Danube — Buda, the hill of the castle on the west bank, and Pest, the flat commercial city on the east, joined with Óbuda into one city in 1873; about 1.7 million people in the city and 3 million in its region, a third of the country, with the Parliament, the Chain Bridge, the baths and the Danube panorama a World Heritage site. Debrecen in the east, the Calvinist Rome, is the second city with about 200,000; Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Győr follow.

How big is Hungary, and how many people live there?

About 93,028 km² (35,918 sq mi) — a little smaller than Indiana, about the size of Portugal — landlocked in the Carpathian Basin among seven neighbors, a third of the kingdom it was before the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. The census of 2022 counted 9,603,634 people; the statistics office KSH estimates about 9.5 million for 2025, a population falling since 1981 through one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, with some 2 million more Hungarians in the neighboring countries and the diaspora.

What are the highest and lowest points of Hungary?

Kékes, 1,014 m (3,327 ft), in the Mátra hills of the north — a country almost without mountains — and the Tisza near Szeged, 78 m (256 ft) above the sea. The Danube runs 417 km through the country and divides it; the Tisza drains the Great Plain, the Alföld, the flat half of the country; Lake Balaton, 592 km², is the largest lake in Central Europe, and Hévíz beside it the largest thermal lake in the world that can be bathed in.

What currency does Hungary use?

The Hungarian forint (ISO code HUF, Ft), issued by the Hungarian National Bank since 1946, when it ended the worst hyperinflation in history — at about 360 to the U.S. dollar and 400 to the euro. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 without a date for the euro, and none is set, though two-thirds of Hungarians tell the pollsters they want it. Clocks keep Central European Time, UTC+1, with summer time.

Who governs Hungary?

Prime Minister Péter Magyar of the Tisza party, in office since 9 May 2026 after the election of 12 April 2026, in which his party, founded in 2024, took 53 percent of the vote and 141 of the 199 seats — a two-thirds majority — and ended the sixteen years of Viktor Orbán, whose Fidesz fell to 52 seats; Orbán conceded on election night. Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who broke with the party in 2024 over the pardon scandal that felled President Novák, governs with Anita Orbán, no relation, as deputy prime minister and foreign minister. András Baka, the judge whom the Orbán government removed as chief justice in 2012, has been president since 19 August 2026. The next election is due in 2030.

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