Hungary

Hungary is a country in the middle of Europe.

It has no seaside. Much of the land is flat and wide. A big river called the Danube flows through it. The capital city is called Budapest.

Hungary is a country in central Europe with no coast. It sits in a wide lowland called the Carpathian Basin. In Hungarian, the country's name is Magyarország.

Most of Hungary is flat or gently hilly. The Great Hungarian Plain covers much of the center and southeast, and the Danube River flows through the country. The capital, Budapest, stands on both banks of the Danube. About 9.5 million people lived in Hungary at the start of 2026.

Hungary lies between about 45° and 49° N and 16° and 23° E, within the Carpathian Basin. It covers 93,025 km² according to the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH). Great lowland expanses form its core: the Little Alföld in the northwest and the Great Alföld, which covers most of central and southeastern Hungary, separated by a low mountain backbone running about 400 km from southwest to northeast.

Britannica describes the country as wholly Budapest-centered: the capital, on both banks of the Danube just downstream of the Danube Bend, dwarfs every other city and holds most scientific, scholarly and artistic institutions. KSH counted 9,488,428 residents on January 1, 2026, about 51,000 fewer than a year earlier. Britannica notes that the population peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s and that deaths have outnumbered births since then.

Budapest is the biggest city in Hungary.

The Danube River flows right through the middle. Bridges join the two sides. On one side there is an old castle on a hill. Far away on the plains, people still keep old kinds of cattle and horses.

Budapest was once three towns, Buda, Óbuda and Pest, on the two banks of the Danube. They joined together as one city in 1873. UNESCO lists the Danube riverbanks and the Buda Castle Quarter as a World Heritage Site, with remains of the Roman town of Aquincum and the Gothic castle of Buda. About 1.68 million people lived in Budapest in 2026.

In the east, the Hortobágy is a huge area of grassy plains and wetlands where people have grazed farm animals for more than 2,000 years. In the north, the village of Hollókő shows how country people lived before modern farming. The Aggtelek hills have hundreds of caves.

UNESCO inscribed Budapest's Banks of the Danube and Buda Castle Quarter in 1987, citing the remains of the Roman city of Aquincum and the Gothic castle of Buda; Clark's suspension bridge, finished in 1849, symbolized the link between Buda and Pest, which with Óbuda formally united only in 1873. KSH counted 1,675,777 residents in Budapest on January 1, 2026; the major provincial centers are Debrecen, Miskolc, Szeged, Pécs and Győr.

The Hortobágy Puszta (1999) is a vast cultural landscape of plains and wetlands where grazing has continued for more than two millennia and the original Hungarian cattle, horse and sheep breeds are preserved. Hollókő (1987), developed mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries, is a deliberately preserved village. The Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst (1995), 712 identified caves shared with Slovakia, show a rare combination of tropical and glacial climatic effects that lets scientists study tens of millions of years of geological history. Tokaj's wine region (2002) and Lake Fertő (2001) are also World Heritage Sites.

Hungary has big rivers.

The Danube is the longest. The Tisza is another big river. Lake Balaton is a very big lake. Many people go there on holiday. The tallest mountain is called Kékes.

All of Hungary's rivers belong to the Danube's family. The Danube and two of its branches come from the Alps, while the Tisza comes from the Carpathian Mountains to the east. The Danube floods twice a year, in early spring and early summer. To protect against floods, people have built about 4,000 kilometers of long banks called levees.

Lake Balaton, 598 square kilometers, is the largest freshwater lake in central Europe and a favorite place for holidays. The highest peak, Kékes, in the Mátra Mountains, is only 1,014 meters tall. Summers are warm and winters cold: in July the average is about 18 to 23 °C, and in January about −4 to 0 °C.

Hungary lies wholly within the Danube basin. The Danube, Rába and Dráva are of Alpine origin; the Tisza and its tributaries rise in the Carpathians and drain much of the east, meandering across a floodplain marked by oxbow lakes. The Danube floods in early spring and early summer, when discharge can be ten times its autumn and winter levels, and at Szolnok the Tisza has peaked at 50 times its average; about 4,000 km of levees protect against floods. The lowlands lie mostly between 80 and 200 m, with the lowest point, 78 m, near Szeged on the Tisza; the volcanic Mátra Mountains reach 1,014 m at Kékes.

The climate is moderately dry continental: a mean annual temperature of about 10 °C, recorded extremes of 43 °C and −34 °C, and 500–600 mm of precipitation in the lowlands, up to two-thirds of it in the growing season. Lake Balaton (598 km²) is central Europe's largest freshwater lake. Human activity has largely replaced the natural vegetation; about half the land is cultivated, and beech and oak woodland grow in the uplands, with no natural conifer forest.

Deer and wild pigs live in the forests.

Hares and pheasants live on the flat plains. Fish swim in the rivers and lakes. Old kinds of farm cattle, horses and sheep live on the Hortobágy plain.

In Hungary's higher forests, deer and wild pigs are common. On the lowland plains live hares, partridges, pheasants and many small rodents. Many kinds of marsh birds were once common; today they survive only in nature reserves.

The rivers and lakes hold freshwater fish such as pike, bream and pike perch. On the Hortobágy plain, the original Hungarian breeds of cattle, horses and sheep are kept as part of the country's heritage.

Britannica notes that deer and wild pigs are abundant in the forests at higher elevations, while rodents, hares, partridge and pheasant inhabit the lowlands. The once-numerous marsh waterfowl survive only in nature reserves, and the freshwater fish include pike, bream and pike perch. It also records significant water and air pollution in some industrial regions.

Domestic breeds are part of the protected landscape too: in the Hortobágy, the original Hungarian breeds of cattle, horse and sheep have been preserved as national heritage, and UNESCO describes grazing there as a traditional land use for more than two thousand years. UNESCO calls the 712 caves of the Aggtelek and Slovak Karst a typical temperate-zone karst system. About half the land is regularly cultivated and about one-sixth is used for nonagricultural purposes; the rest is meadow, rough pasture, forest and woodland.

About 9.5 million people live in Hungary.

Most people speak Hungarian. Paprika is a spice made from peppers. It is used in many meals. Goulash is a famous Hungarian dish.

About 9.5 million people lived in Hungary at the start of 2026, and about seven in ten live in towns and cities. Most people speak Hungarian, which belongs to a language family called Uralic. Its closest relatives are two languages spoken far to the east, beyond the Ural Mountains, and it is more distantly related to Finnish and Estonian.

Hungarian food is rich and often spiced with paprika, made from the pods of peppers. Goulash, bean soup with smoked meat, and halászlé, a spicy fish soup, are well-known dishes. On national holidays, many people enjoy folk dancing, choral singing and displays of traditional folk arts.

KSH counted 9,488,428 residents on January 1, 2026. More than four-fifths of the population is ethnically Hungarian and speaks Hungarian (Magyar), a member of the Ugric branch of the Uralic languages, most closely related to Khanty and Mansi east of the Urals and more distantly to Finnish and Estonian. The largest minority is the Roma; others include Germans, Slovaks, Croats, Romanians and Serbs. Hungary has no official religion; more than a third of people are Roman Catholic and about a tenth Calvinist. About seven-tenths of the population is urban, and many ethnic Hungarians live in neighboring countries.

Britannica calls cuisine Hungary's most traditional cultural element: goulash (gulyás), bean soup with smoked meat and beef stew are national dishes, and paprika, made from Capsicum annuum pods and not native to Hungary, is the most distinctive ingredient, with halászlé and lecsó among the spicy dishes. National holidays include March 15 (the Revolution of 1848), August 20 (St. Stephen's Day) and October 23, marked with folk dancing, choral singing and folk arts; the Matyó of the northern plain are noted for embroidery and multicolored dress.