"text":"Hungary became a Christian kingdom in A.D. 1000 and for many centuries served as a bulwark against Ottoman Turkish expansion in Europe. The kingdom eventually became part of the polyglot Austro-Hungarian Empire, which collapsed during World War I. The country fell under communist rule following World War II. In 1956, a revolt and an announced withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact were met with a massive military intervention by Moscow. Under the leadership of Janos KADAR in 1968, Hungary began liberalizing its economy, introducing so-called \"Goulash Communism.\" Hungary held its first multiparty elections in 1990 and initiated a free market economy. It joined NATO in 1999 and the EU five years later."
"text":"Danube (shared with Germany [s], Austria, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania [m]) - 2,888 km<br><strong>note</strong> – [s] after country name indicates river source; [m] after country name indicates river mouth"
"text":"a fairly even distribution throughout most of the country, with urban areas attracting larger and denser populations"
},
"Geography - note":{
"text":"landlocked; strategic location astride main land routes between Western Europe and Balkan Peninsula as well as between Ukraine and Mediterranean basin; the north-south flowing Duna (Danube) and Tisza Rivers divide the country into three large regions"
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> percentages add up to more than 100% because respondents were able to identify more than one ethnic group; Romani populations are usually underestimated in official statistics and may represent 5–10% of Hungary's population"
"text":"Hungarian (official) 99.6%, English 16%, German 11.2%, Russian 1.6%, Romanian 1.3%, French 1.2%, other 4.2%; note - shares sum to more than 100% because some respondents gave more than one answer on the census; Hungarian is the mother tongue of 98.9% of Hungarian speakers (2011 est.)"
"text":"<br>A World Factbook nélkülözhetetlen forrása az alapvető információnak. (Hungarian)<br><br>The World Factbook, the indispensable source for basic information."
"text":"air and water pollution are some of Hungary's most serious environmental problems; water quality in the Hungarian part of the Danube has improved but is still plagued by pollutants from industry and large-scale agriculture; soil pollution"
},
"Environment - international agreements":{
"party to":{
"text":"Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Heavy Metals, Air Pollution-Multi-effect Protocol, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping-London Convention, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 2006, Wetlands, Whaling"
},
"signed, but not ratified":{
"text":"Antarctic-Environmental Protection"
}
},
"Air pollutants":{
"particulate matter emissions":{
"text":"15.62 micrograms per cubic meter (2016 est.)"
"text":"Danube (shared with Germany [s], Austria, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania [m]) - 2,888 km<br><strong>note</strong> – [s] after country name indicates river source; [m] after country name indicates river mouth"
"text":"the Byzantine Greeks refered to the tribes that arrived on the steppes of Eastern Europe in the 9th century as the \"Oungroi,\" a name that was later Latinized to \"Ungri\" and which became \"Hungari\"; the name originally meant an \"[alliance of] ten tribes\"; the Hungarian name \"Magyarorszag\" means \"Country of the Magyars\"; the term may derive from the most prominent of the Hungarian tribes, the Megyer"
}
},
"Government type":{
"text":"parliamentary republic"
},
"Capital":{
"name":{
"text":"Budapest"
},
"geographic coordinates":{
"text":"47 30 N, 19 05 E"
},
"time difference":{
"text":"UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time)"
},
"daylight saving time":{
"text":"+1hr, begins last Sunday in March; ends last Sunday in October"
"text":"the Hungarian capital city was formed in 1873 from the merger of three cities on opposite banks of the Danube: Buda and Obuda (Old Buda) on the western shore and Pest on the eastern; the origins of the original names are obscure, but according to the second century A.D. geographer, Ptolemy, the settlement that would become Pest was called \"Pession\" in ancient times; \"Buda\" may derive from either a Slavic or Turkic personal name"
"text":"16 November 1918 (republic proclaimed); notable earlier dates: 25 December 1000 (crowning of King STEPHEN I, traditional founding date); 30 March 1867 (Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy established)"
},
"National holiday":{
"text":"Saint Stephen's Day, 20 August (1083); note - commemorates his canonization and the transfer of his remains to Buda (now Budapest) in 1083"
},
"Constitution":{
"history":{
"text":"previous 1949 (heavily amended in 1989 following the collapse of communism); latest approved 18 April 2011, signed 25 April 2011, effective 1 January 2012"
},
"amendments":{
"text":"proposed by the president of the republic, by the government, by parliamentary committee, or by Parliament members; passage requires two-thirds majority vote of Parliament members and approval by the president; amended several times, last in 2018"
}
},
"Legal system":{
"text":"civil legal system influenced by the German model"
},
"International law organization participation":{
"text":"accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations; accepts ICC jurisdiction"
},
"Citizenship":{
"citizenship by birth":{
"text":"no"
},
"citizenship by descent only":{
"text":"at least one parent must be a citizen of Hungary"
},
"dual citizenship recognized":{
"text":"yes"
},
"residency requirement for naturalization":{
"text":"8 years"
}
},
"Suffrage":{
"text":"18 years of age, 16 if married and marriage is registered in Hungary; universal"
"text":"president indirectly elected by the National Assembly with two-thirds majority vote in first round or simple majority vote in second round for a 5-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held on 11 March 2022 (next to be held spring 2027); prime minister elected by the National Assembly on the recommendation of the president; election last held on 10 May 2018 (next to be held in April or May 2022)"
"text":"<em>2022: </em>Katalin NOVAK (Fidesz) elected president; National Assembly vote - 137 to 51; note - Katalin NOVAK will assume office in May 2022<em><br><br>2017:</em> Janos ADER (Fidesz) reelected president; National Assembly vote - 131 to 39<br><br>Viktor ORBAN (Fidesz) reelected prime minister; National Assembly vote - 134 to 28"
"text":"unicameral National Assembly or Orszaggyules (199 seats; 106 members directly elected in single-member constituencies by simple majority vote and 93 members directly elected in a single nationwide constituency by party-list proportional representation vote; members serve 4-year terms)"
"text":"percent of vote by party list - Fidesz-KDNP 49.3%, Jobbik 19.1%, MSZP-PM 11.9%, LMP 7.1%, DK 5.4%, Momentum Movement 3.1%, Together 0.7%, LdU 0.5%, other 2.9%; seats by party - Fidesz 117, Jobbik 26, KDNP 16, MSZP 15, DK 9, LMP 8, PM 5, Together 1, LdU 1, independent 1; composition (as of October 2021) - men 173, women 26, percent of women 13.1%"
"text":"Curia or Supreme Judicial Court (consists of the president, vice president, department heads, and has a maximum of 113 judges, and is organized into civil, criminal, and administrative-labor departments; Constitutional Court (consists of 15 judges, including the court president and vice president)"
"text":"Curia president elected by the National Assembly on the recommendation of the president of the republic; other Curia judges appointed by the president upon the recommendation of the National Judicial Council, a separate 15-member administrative body; judge tenure based on interim evaluations until normal retirement at age 62; Constitutional Court judges, including the president of the court, elected by the National Assembly; court vice president elected by the court itself; members serve 12-year terms with mandatory retirement at age 62"
},
"subordinate courts":{
"text":"5 regional courts of appeal; 19 regional or county courts (including Budapest Metropolitan Court); 20 administrative-labor courts; 111 district or local courts"
"text":"Christian Democratic People's Party or KDNP [Zsolt SEMJEN]<br>Democratic Coalition or DK [Ferenc GYURCSANY]<br>Dialogue for Hungary (Parbeszed) or PM [Gergely KARACSONY, Timea SZABO]<br>Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Alliance or Fidesz [Viktor ORBAN]<br>Hungarian Socialist Party or MSZP [Bertalan TOTH]<br>Momentum Movement (Momentum Mozgalom) [Andras FEKETE-GYOR]<br>Movement for a Better Hungary or Jobbik [Tamas SNEIDER]<br>National Self-Government of Germans in Hungary or LdU [Olivia SCHUBERT]<br>Politics Can Be Different or LMP [Marta DEMETER, Laszlo LORANT-KERESZTES]<br>Together (Egyutt)"
"text":"three equal horizontal bands of red (top), white, and green; the flag dates to the national movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, and fuses the medieval colors of the Hungarian coat of arms with the revolutionary tricolor form of the French flag; folklore attributes virtues to the colors: red for strength, white for faithfulness, and green for hope; alternatively, the red is seen as being for the blood spilled in defense of the land, white for freedom, and green for the pasturelands that make up so much of the country"
},
"National symbol(s)":{
"text":"Holy Crown of Hungary (Crown of Saint Stephen); national colors: red, white, green"
"text":"Budapest, including the Banks of the Danube, the Buda Castle Quarter, and Andrássy Avenue (c); Old Village of Hollókő and its Surroundings (c); Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst (n); Millenary Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma and its Natural Environment (c); Hortobágy National Park - the Puszta (c); Early Christian Necropolis of Pécs (Sopianae) (c); Fertö / Neusiedlersee Cultural Landscape (c); Tokaj Wine Region Historic Cultural Landscape (c)"
"text":"<p>Hungary has transitioned from a centrally planned to a market-driven economy with a per capita income approximately two thirds of the EU-28 average; however, in recent years the government has become more involved in managing the economy. Budapest has implemented unorthodox economic policies to boost household consumption and has relied on EU-funded development projects to generate growth.</p> <p></p> <p>Following the fall of communism in 1990, Hungary experienced a drop-off in exports and financial assistance from the former Soviet Union. Hungary embarked on a series of economic reforms, including privatization of state-owned enterprises and reduction of social spending programs, to shift from a centrally planned to a market-driven economy, and to reorient its economy towards trade with the West. These efforts helped to spur growth, attract investment, and reduce Hungary’s debt burden and fiscal deficits. Despite these reforms, living conditions for the average Hungarian initially deteriorated as inflation increased and unemployment reached double digits. Conditions slowly improved over the 1990s as the reforms came to fruition and export growth accelerated. Economic policies instituted during that decade helped position Hungary to join the European Union in 2004. Hungary has not yet joined the euro-zone. Hungary suffered a historic economic contraction as a result of the global economic slowdown in 2008-09 as export demand and domestic consumption dropped, prompting it to take an IMF-EU financial assistance package.</p> <p></p> <p>Since 2010, the government has backpedaled on many economic reforms and taken a more populist approach towards economic management. The government has favored national industries and government-linked businesses through legislation, regulation, and public procurements. In 2011 and 2014, Hungary nationalized private pension funds, which squeezed financial service providers out of the system, but also helped Hungary curb its public debt and lower its budget deficit to below 3% of GDP, as subsequent pension contributions have been channeled into the state-managed pension fund. Hungary’s public debt (at 74.5% of GDP) is still high compared to EU peers in Central Europe. Real GDP growth has been robust in the past few years due to increased EU funding, higher EU demand for Hungarian exports, and a rebound in domestic household consumption. To further boost household consumption ahead of the 2018 election, the government embarked on a six-year phased increase to minimum wages and public sector salaries, decreased taxes on foodstuffs and services, cut the personal income tax from 16% to 15%, and implemented a uniform 9% business tax for small and medium-sized enterprises and large companies. Real GDP growth slowed in 2016 due to a cyclical decrease in EU funding, but increased to 3.8% in 2017 as the government pre-financed EU funded projects ahead of the 2018 election.</p> <p></p> <p>Systemic economic challenges include pervasive corruption, labor shortages driven by demographic declines and migration, widespread poverty in rural areas, vulnerabilities to changes in demand for exports, and a heavy reliance on Russian energy imports.</p>"
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> Hungary has been under the EU Excessive Deficit Procedure since it joined the EU in 2004; in March 2012, the EU elevated its Excessive Deficit Procedure against Hungary and proposed freezing 30% of the country's Cohesion Funds because 2011 deficit reductions were not achieved in a sustainable manner; in June 2012, the EU lifted the freeze, recognizing that steps had been taken to reduce the deficit; the Hungarian deficit increased above 3% both in 2013 and in 2014 due to sluggish growth and the government's fiscal tightening"
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> general government gross debt is defined in the Maastricht Treaty as consolidated general government gross debt at nominal value, outstanding at the end of the year in the following categories of government liabilities: currency and deposits, securities other than shares excluding financial derivatives, and national, state, and local government and social security funds."
"text":"Hungary benefits from a well-developed telecom infrastructure, with adoption of 5G and upgrade of fixed networks to 1Gb/s service; fixed-line subscribership fell as subscribers migrated to mobile for voice and data; effective infrastructure-based competition, with an extensive cable network competing against DSL and expanding fiber sector; high mobile penetration and highest fixed broadband penetration rate in Eastern Europe; government supports private partnership in smart agriculture applications; as part of EU, fully liberalized and open to investment; broadcasting equipment is one of the country’s top five imports, plus mobile phones, from China (2020)"
"text":"competition among mobile-cellular service providers has led to a sharp increase in the use of mobile-cellular phones, and a decrease in the number of fixed-line connections, with just under 31 fixed per 100 persons and 107 mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 (2020)"
"text":"country code - 36; Hungary has fiber-optic cable connections with all neighboring countries; the international switch is in Budapest; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean regions), 1 Inmarsat, 1 (very small aperture terminal) VSAT system of ground terminals"
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant impact on production and supply chains globally; since 2020, some aspects of the telecom sector have experienced downturn, particularly in mobile device production; many network operators delayed upgrades to infrastructure; progress towards 5G implementation was postponed or slowed in some countries; consumer spending on telecom services and devices was affected by large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes; the crucial nature of telecom services as a tool for work and school from home became evident, and received some support from governments"
"text":"mixed system of state-supported public service broadcast media and private broadcasters; the 5 publicly owned TV channels and the 2 main privately owned TV stations are the major national broadcasters; a large number of special interest channels; highly developed market for satellite and cable TV services with about two-thirds of viewers utilizing their services; 4 state-supported public-service radio networks; a large number of local stations including commercial, public service, nonprofit, and community radio stations; digital transition completed at the end of 2013; government-linked businesses have greatly consolidated ownership in broadcast and print media"
"text":"5874 km gas (high-pressure transmission system), 83732 km gas (low-pressure distribution network), 850 km oil, 1200 km refined products (2016)"
},
"Railways":{
"total":{
"text":"8,049 km (2014)"
},
"standard gauge":{
"text":"7,794 km 1.435-m gauge (2,889 km electrified) (2014)"
"text":"the inventory of the Hungarian Defense Forces consists largely of Soviet-era weapons, with a smaller mix of more modern European and US equipment; since 2010, Hungary has received limited quantities of equipment from several European countries and the US (2021)"
"text":"Hungary joined NATO in 1999; Czechia, Hungary, and Poland were invited to begin accession talks at NATO's Madrid Summit in 1997 and in March 1999 they became the first former members of the Warsaw Pact to join the Alliance"
"text":"<p>bilateral government, legal, technical and economic working group negotiations continue in 2006 with Slovakia over Hungary's failure to complete its portion of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric dam project along the Danube; as a member state that forms part of the EU's external border, Hungary has implemented the strict Schengen border rules</p>"
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> 432,744 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-December 2018); Hungary is predominantly a transit country and hosts 137 migrants and asylum seekers as of the end of June 2018; 1,626 migrant arrivals in 2017"
"text":"transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin and cannabis and for South American cocaine destined for Western Europe; limited producer of precursor chemicals, particularly for amphetamine and methamphetamine; efforts to counter money laundering, related to organized crime and drug trafficking are improving but remain vulnerable; significant consumer of ecstasy"
