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Geography of Hungary

The Republic of Hungary is a landlocked country situated in Central Europe, neighboring Austria and Slovakia, Ukrain and Romania, Serbia and Croatia, as well as Slovenia. Its capital is the beautiful city of Budapest. Today Hungary is a member of NATO, the Schengen Agreement and the European Union where it will come into presidency in year 2011. Hungary is among the fifteen most popular destinations in the world for the past decade. It is small in size; however it has diverse nature comprising of low rolling mountains and plains, many rivers and the largest lake in Central Europe named Lake Balaton.

In Hungary are located several UNESCO protected Biosphere reserves, the second largest thermal lake on the globe named Lake Heviz and the largest natural grassland on the continent. The highest mountains that could be seen in Hungary are in the Carpathians which are in the northen part of the country close to the Slovakian border. The largest river that flows through Hungary is the Danube, followed by Drava and Tisza. The climate in Hungary is continental and is characterized with hot summers, requent rainshowers and very cold winters with a lot of snow. The average annual temperatures in almost ten degrees, which means that the temperatures can go to 42 degrees in the summer and -29 degrees in the winter. In a smal part of the country set deep in the south, the climate is Mediterranean but actually the weather is slightly warmer but still gets a lot of snow during the winter months. Hungary is divided into nineteen counties which are further divided into 173 subregions.

Approximately 95 % of the Hungarians have Hungarian as their mother language, which is related to Estonian and Finnish. The minority groups in the country are Roma, Germans, Slovaks, Croats, Romanians, Ukrainians and Serbs. The Roma minority is the largest and actually the real number of the Roma people is subkect of dispute. The traditional lifestyle of the Romas hinders their integration into the society and is a basis for conflicts. The low status of the Roma population and their lack of proper education which reslts in unemployment, leads to problems of poverty and crime.

Christianity was introduced into the Hungarian territory during the tenth century and remained Catholic until the 16th century when after the Reformation period, Lutheranism and Calvinism became the popular religions. By the next century the country turned to Catholism again. Orthodox Christianity is also popular in Hungary but mainly among the minorities. As the country was also home to a great number of Jews, an interesting fact is that Budapest hosts the largest synagogue in Europe.