Geography
Hungary's capital, Budapest (47 33N 19 03E), lies in the north part of the country and is neatly bisected by the river Danube and has been the hub of the Carpathian basin. To the east of Hungary are the Carpathian mountains which encloses an alluvial plain; some tens of thousands of years ago it had been a huge inland lake interspersed with rolling hill country, protecting it from the open spaces to its north, east and south-east. In the south it terminates at the river Sava, beyond which the mountain ranges of the Balkan Peninsula rise; in the west at the foothills of the Styrian Alps. The Danube, foremost of Europe's rivers, enters it by the gap between the Carpathians' westernmost tip and the Styrian Alps; having collected the waters of all rivers that rise within or enter the basin, it breaks through the opposite end of the Carpathians at the Iron Gates.
History
In the closing years of the 9th century a confederation of seven nomadic tribes, numbering perhaps a few hundred thousand people in all, crossed into this Carpathian Basin from the east, impelled to do so, if indirectly, by Byzantine foreign policy. Finding it well-suited to their pastoral-agricultural lifestyle, and sparsely populated, they rapidly occupied all of it, to settle there for good. The history of Hungary is the history of these people in this place from that time: their arrival marks a break in the continuity, and a new beginning, in the history of the Carpathian Basin, which before had a succession of other migrants including the Roman Empire and the Huns.
From the 14th century the fortress of Buda, on the West bank of the Danube, was the seat of the Magyar kings. After occupation by the Turks, it came under Habsburg rule in the 17th century. In 1872 it united with Pest to form the city that became the capital of Hungary in 1918. In 1956 it was the scene of a popular uprising, suppressed by Soviet troops. It remained under Soviet rule until the break up of the Soviet Union in 1989. In May 2004 Hungary joined the European Union.
Population
Budapest's metropolitan area population is approximately 3 million. The population of Hungary is about 10 million.
