Hungary. The Hungarian Landscape before World War II

Hungary is located in east-central Europe, sharing borders with Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Romania, and Slovakia. From 1948 until 1989 the Hungarian Communist Party directed production and distribution. In 1989 Hungary went through a major historical restructuring from a state socialist to a market economy.

After the political changes of 1989 state-owned companies were sold to private owners. During the five years after the change of systems, unemployment rose to 10 percent. By 2002 unemployment had dropped to 5.8 percent, with higher unemployment in eastern Hungary.

Hungary's population has declined over the past fifty years; 17.4 percent live in the capital city of Budapest. Thirty-four percent of the population works in manufacturing of machinery, food, textiles, and other goods. Agriculture and fishing are also important economic sectors.

Magyar, or Hungarian, is the official language. Major ethnic groups are Magyars, accounting for 90 percent of the population, and Roma (Gypsies) with 5 percent. Other ethnicities, such as Croats, Romanians, Slovaks, Germans, and Jews, total 5 percent.

Key national symbols include the crown of Saint Stephen and the Chain Bridge spanning the Danube River in Budapest. Hungary's landscape itself is a potent symbol, featured in many poems about the Great Plain and the Danube.

Participation in organized religion dropped after World War II. Over two-thirds of Hungarians are Roman Catholics. The second-largest denomination, Calvinism, accounts for 20 percent of the population. Hungary is also home to smaller congregations of Lutherans, Greek Catholics, Serbian and Romanian Orthodox Christians, and Jews.

Hungary's entire territory falls within the Carpathian Basin. Two major rivers cross Hungary: the Danube and the Tisza. The Great Plain comprises approximately half of Hungary's national territory. Lake Balaton is the largest freshwater lake in central Europe. Hungary has thousands of geothermal sources and caves, including the spectacular caverns at Aggtelek National Park. Important native wildlife populations include the European mayfly (ephemeroptera galactica) and the Eurasian otter (lutra lutra).

The Hungarian Landscape before World War II. Hungary's landscape and population have changed over time with geopolitical shifts in east-central Europe. Around 896, Magyar tribes swept off the Black Sea steppes into the Carpathian Basin and settled in what is now Hungary. In 1000 King (later Saint) Stephen received a crown from the Vatican and established Hungary as a unified state. By 1301 the Hungarian kingdom included the entire arc of the Carpathians, the Great Plain, and parts of Croatia.

The Ottoman Turks invaded Hungary in 1526, occupying the banks of the Danube as far north as Budapest. Many of the occupied region's inhabitants died or fled during subsequent decades of warfare. When the Hapsburgs defeated the Ottomans in 1686, they resettled the Danube plains with hundreds of thousands of emigrants from northern Hungary, Germany, and Serbia. These settlers drained the Danube wetlands and transformed marshes into agricultural lands.

The reforms and public works projects of Count Istvan Szechenyi paved the way for Hungary's industrialization and transformed the Hungarian landscape. In the 1830s Szechenyi oversaw the construction of railroads, roads, and bridges. With the assistance of engineer Pal Väsärhelyi, Szechenyi directed large-scale flood-control projects that regulated the flow of the Danube and Tisza Rivers. River regulation led to the intensification of agriculture in Hungary's floodplains.

This drive to modernize Hungary culminated in the Hungarian national revolution of 1848-1849. Although the revolution was put down by the Hapsburg army, it led to the 1867 establishment of the Hapsburg's Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, in which Hungary gained economic resources and control of its domestic affairs.

By the late nineteenth century a few natural historians began to document Hungary's wildlife. Naturalist Otto Herman published the first scientific guide to Hungarian birds in 1901. Early ornithological societies formed in Austria-Hungary around the same time.

Defeat in World War I shook Austria-Hungary to its foundations. The Treaty of Trianon (1920) established Hungary as an independent nation but ceded 70 percent of Hungary's previous territory to Romania, Croatia, and Czechoslovakia. Hungary lost its forests, mines, and industrial regions. Hungarian leaders directed their energies to recapturing the lost territory.

This strategy led the nation into an alliance with Adolph Hitler's Germany in 1940, followed by another military defeat in 1945. In 1947 the Hungarian Communist Party, backed by the Soviet Union, took control of the government and major industries.