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BUDAPEST - HUNGARY
Budapest (pronounced BOO-dah-pesht, X-SAMPA: /budapESt/), the capital city
of Hungary and the country's principal political, industrial, commercial and
transportation centre, has more than 1.8 million inhabitants, down from a
mid-1980s peak of 2.07m. It became a single city occupying both banks of the
river Danube with the amalgamation in 1873 of right-bank Buda and Óbuda with
Pest on the left (east) bank.
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. Today's Pest became the site of Contra
Aquincum (or Trans Aquincum) .
The area was occupied around the year 900 by the Magyars, the ancestors
of today's ethnic Hungarians, who a century later 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 Turks' conquest of most of Hungary in the 16th century
interrupted the cities' growth: Pest fell to the invaders from the south in
1526 and Buda 15 years later. While Buda remained the seat of a Turkish
governor, Pest was largely derelict by the time of their recapture in 1686
by Austria's Habsburg rulers, since 1526 kings of Hungary despite their loss
of most of the country.
It was Pest, from 1723 the seat of the administrative apparatus for the
kingdom, which enjoyed the fastest growth rate in the 18th and 19th century
and contributed the overwhelming majority of the cities' combined growth in
the 19th. By 1800 larger than Buda and Óbuda combined, Pest's population
grew twentyfold in the following century to 600,000, while that of Buda and
Óbuda quintupled.
The fusion of the three districts 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
"Compromise" of 1867 (see Austria-Hungary). The total population in the area
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 in 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 half 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.
Around a third of Budapest's 200,000 Jewish inhabitants died through Nazi
genocide during the World War II German occupation in 1944. Damaged severely
during the Soviet siege of the following winter, 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 coupled with natural population decrease.
Districts of Budapest
Tabán, Vár - District I
Rózsadomb, Pasarét - District II
Óbuda - District III
Újpest - District IV
Belváros, Lipótváros - District V
Terézváros - District VI
Erzsébetváros - District VII
Józsefváros - District VIII
Ferencváros - District IX
Kobánya - District X
Újbuda - District XI (Kelenvölgy, Kelenföld, Lágymányos, Albertfalva,
Gellérthegy, Sashegy, Gazdagrét, Ormezo)
Hegyvidék - District XII
Újlipótváros, Angyalföld - District XIII
Zugló - District XIV (Alsórákos, Herminamezo, Istvánmezo, Kiszugló,
Nagyzugló, Rákosfalva, Törökor, Városliget)
Rákospalota, Pestújhely, Újpalota - District XV
Mátyásföld, Sashalom, Cinkota - District XVI
Rákosmente - District XVII (Rákoskeresztúr, Rákoscsaba, Rákosliget,
Rákoshegy, Rákoskert)
Pestszentlorinc - District XVIII
Kispest - District XIX
Pesterzsébet - District XX
Csepel - District XXI
Budatétény, Nagytétény, Budafok - District XXII
Soroksár - District XXIII
Transport
Airport
Ferihegy 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
center in the XIX. district in Kispest.
Roads
Budapest is the most important node of roads (in Hungary), all the highways
end in thet city. It is the node of railways, too.
Waterways
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).
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