I
officially Republic of Hungary
Country, central Europe.
Area: 35,919 sq mi (93,030 sq km). Population (2002 est.): 10,162,000. Capital: Budapest . The people are an amalgam of Magyars and various Slavic, Turkish, and Germanic peoples. Language: Hungarian (Magyar; official). Religions: Roman Catholicism, Protestantism. Currency: forint. The Great Alfold (Great Hungarian Plain), with fertile agriculture land, occupies nearly half the country. Hungary's two most important rivers are the Tisza . Lake Balaton , in the Transdanubian highlands, is the largest lake in central Europe. Forests cover nearly one-fifth of the land. Hungary is one of the more prosperous countries of eastern Europe and a major world producer of bauxite. A conversion from a socialist to a free-market economy was begun in the late 1980s. It is a multiparty republic with one legislative house; the chief of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. The western part of Hungary was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 14 BC. The Magyar s, a nomadic people, settled in the Great Alfold in the late 9th century. Stephen I , crowned in 1000, Christianized the country and organized it into a strong and independent state. Invasions by the Mongol s in the 13th century and by the Ottoman Turks in the 14th century devastated the country, and by 1568 the territory of modern Hungary had been divided into three parts: Royal Hungary fell to the Habsburg s; Transylvania gained autonomy in 1566 under the Turks; and the central plain remained under Turkish control until the late 17th century, when the Austrian Habsburgs took over. Hungary declared its independence from Austria in 1849, and in 1867 the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary was established. Its defeat in World War I (1914–18) resulted in the dismemberment of Hungary, leaving it only those areas in which Magyars predominated. In an attempt to regain some of this lost territory, Hungary cooperated with the Germans against the Soviet Union during World War II (1939–45). After the war, a pro-Soviet provisional government was established, and in 1949 the Hungarian People's Republic was formed. Opposition to this Stalinist regime broke out in 1956 but was suppressed (see Hungarian Revolution ). Nevertheless, from 1956 to 1988 communist Hungary grew to become the most tolerant of the Soviet-bloc nations of eastern Europe. It gained its independence in 1989 and soon attracted the largest amount of direct foreign investment in eastern and central Europe. In 1999 it joined NATO and the following year celebrated the millennium of its founding.
II
[c mediumvioletred] (as used in expressions)
{{link=Republic of Hungary">Republic of Hungary
Austria Hungary
Elizabeth of Hungary Saint