"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"
"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 3 April 2022 (next to be held April or May 2027)"
"text":"<em>2022: </em>Katalin NOVAK (Fidesz) elected president; National Assembly vote - 137 to 51<em><br><br>2017:</em> Janos ADER (Fidesz) reelected president; National Assembly vote - 131 to 39<br><br><em>2010:</em> Viktor ORBAN (Fidesz) reelected prime minister"
"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, using the d’Hondt method; members serve 4-year terms)"
"text":"percent of vote by party list - Fidesz-KDNP 54.1%, United for Hungary 34.5%, Mi Hazank 5.9%, other 5.5%; seats by party - Fidesz-KDNP 135, United for Hungary 57, Mi Hazank 6, independent 1; composition - men 175, women 24, percent of women 12.1%"
"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 [Bence TORDAI, Rebeka SZABO]<br>Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Alliance or Fidesz [Viktor ORBAN]<br>Hungarian Socialist Party or MSZP [Bertalan TOTH, Agnes KUNHALMI]<br>LMP-Hungary's Green Party [Peter UNGAR, Erzsebet SCHMUCK]<br>Mi Hazank (Our Homeland Movement) or MHM [Laszlo TOROCZKAI]<br>Momentum Movement (Momentum Mozgalom) [Ferenc GELENCSER]<br>Movement for a Better Hungary or Jobbik [Marton GYONGYOSI]<br>National Self-Government of Germans in Hungary or LdU [Ibolya HOCK-ENGLENDER]<br>United for Hungary (a coalition of Jobbik, MSZP, Dialogue, DK, LMP, and Momentum)"
"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":"high-income EU and OECD economy; decreasing government spending; increasing judicial independence concerns; flat income taxation; increasingly dependent on energy imports; strong tourism and automotive manufacturing"
"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 having a developed telecom infrastructure, with a focus among operators to develop the 5G sector and upgrade fixed networks to provide a 1Gb/s service; services based on 5G have been supported by the January 2021 multi-spectrum auction for spectrum in the 900MHz and 1800MHz bands; the number of fixed-lines continues to fall as subscribers migrate to the mobile platform for voice and data services; operators have looked to bundled packages to boost revenue and retain subscribers; the broadband market has effective infrastructure-based competition, with an extensive cable network competing against DSL services and a vibrant and rapidly expanding fiber sector; the regulator has also introduced a number of measures aimed at promoting market competition, which is pushing the drive for higher speed platforms and encouraging operators to invest in technology upgrades; as a result, Hungary now has the highest fixed broadband penetration rate in Eastern Europe; the number of super fast broadband connections (above 30Mb/s) accounted for 78% of all fixed broadband connections (2022)"
"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"
"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 (2019)"
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> paved runways have a concrete or asphalt surface but not all have facilities for refueling, maintenance, or air traffic control; the length of a runway required for aircraft to safely operate depends on a number of factors including the type of aircraft, the takeoff weight (including passengers, cargo, and fuel), engine types, flap settings, landing speed, elevation of the airport, and average maximum daily air temperature; paved runways can reach a length of 5,000 m (16,000 ft.), but the “typical” length of a commercial airline runway is between 2,500-4,000 m (8,000-13,000 ft.)"
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> unpaved runways have a surface composition such as grass or packed earth and are most suited to the operation of light aircraft; unpaved runways are usually short, often less than 1,000 m (3,280 ft.) in length; airports with unpaved runways often lack facilities for refueling, maintenance, or air traffic control"
"text":"5,874 km gas (high-pressure transmission system), 83,732 km gas (low-pressure distribution network), 850 km oil, 1,200 km refined products (2018)"
"text":"Hungarian Defense Forces (HDF or Magyar Honvédség): the HDF is organized as a joint force under a general staff with commands for land, air, cyber, special operations, territorial defense, and support forces (2023)",
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> the National Police are under the Ministry of Interior and responsible for maintaining order nationwide; the Ministry of Interior also has the Counterterrorism Center, a special police force responsible for protecting the president and the prime minister and for preventing, uncovering, and detecting terrorist acts"
"text":"approximately 21,000 active-duty troops (16,000 Army; 5,000 Air Force) (2022)",
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> in 2017, Hungary announced plans to increase the number of active soldiers to around 37,000 but did not give a timeline"
"text":"the military's inventory consists largely of Soviet-era weapons, with a smaller mix of more modern European and US equipment; in recent years, Germany has been the top supplier of military hardware to Hungary (2023)"
"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 (2023)"
"text":"Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS)",
"note":"<strong>note:</strong> details about the history, aims, leadership, organization, areas of operation, tactics, targets, weapons, size, and sources of support of the group(s) appear(s) in Appendix-T"
"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>"
"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"
