Budapest houses one-third of Hungary yet punches as a global hub
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and primate city, with about 1.7 million residents and a metro near 3.3 million—roughly a third of the nation. Ranked among the world’s fifty most important cities, it sits in the narrow club of urban economies producing over US$120 billion in GDP.
Budapest began as a Celtic settlement founded before 1 AD that the Romans turned into Aquincum, which became the chief city of Pannonia Inferior in 106 AD. Magyar tribes under Árpád arrived at the end of the 9th century, displacing the Bulgarian founders of Buda and Pest, and a century later the Kingdom of Hungary was founded. The Mongols ravaged the area in 1241, and Buda became the royal seat in 1361.
Under Matthias Corvinus, Buda absorbed the Italian Renaissance, and in the 15th century his Bibliotheca Corviniana held Europe's finest collection of chronicles and philosophical and scientific works, second in size only to the Vatican Library. The Ottomans took Buda in 1526 and 1529 and held it from 1541 for more than 150 years, leaving baths such as Rudas and Király that still operate. In 1686, two years after a failed siege, a Holy League army of over 74,000 soldiers from across Europe retook the city.
Buda, Óbuda and Pest were formally merged in 1873 under the new name Budapest, having earlier gone by the nickname Pest-Buda. Medieval chronicles claimed Buda was named after Bleda, brother of Attila, while other theories point to a castle constable or a Turkic personal name meaning twig. Pest may come from Ptolemy's 'Pession', a Roman fort opposite Aquincum, or from a Slavic word for cave or kiln, and Hungarians pronounce its s as 'sh'.
The Danube banks form a World Heritage Site, its monuments running from Buda Castle and the 13th-century Matthias Church through to nineteenth-century showpieces like the Hungarian Parliament, St. Stephen's Basilica, the Opera and the Museum of Fine Arts.
Source: Budapest
