Budapest

Topographical contrasts are a feature of the unique townscape. The territory of the city on the right of the Danube includes the river terraces of varying heights and extends far into the Buda Upland, which is composed of dolomite and chalk and which was articulated by a tectonic disturbance into a higher northern part and a lower southern part.

The plain of Pest on the left bank of the Danube is far better suited to settlement.

The present Hungarian capital formally came into being in 1872, with the amalgamation into one of three previously independent towns, Old Buda (Óbuda), Buda, strategically placed on a hill, and Pest, a densely inhabited and rapidly developing township on the other side of the Danube. The new city very quickly became the administrative, commercial and industrial center of Hungary.

The city covers an area of 525sq km (203sq mi) about 173sq km (67sq mi) of the city area are on the right bank of the Danube and about 352sq km (106sq mi) on the left bank. Budapest extends from north to south approximately 25km (16mi) and from east to west about 30km (19mi).

The city is divided into 22 districts. The commercial quarter (District V), which was not dissimilar to the central business district of a Western city even before the fall of the "Iron Curtain", extends along Pest's Danube bank. Before the fall of Communism all the government and administrative offices, financial and commercial institutions as well as important cultural and scientific establishments were concentrated in this area, and indeed this is still the case under the new democratic regime. There are more than 600,000 jobs in District V alone. The population density amounts to 4000 per sq km (1540 per sq mi), and another 500,000 or more commute daily from elsewhere.

The fringe districts comprise the outer domiciliary and working districts. More than 200,000 jobs have been set up here, mainly created by modern industrial concerns. Most people in these areas live in dull high-rise flats and on housing estates, although there are now larger areas of mostly privately-owned houses with pretty gardens.

The richest mineral springs in Europe are to be found within the city of Budapest. 123 registered thermal springs provide curative waters of varying temperatures. Some of these springs have been used for therapeutic purposes since prehistory.

History

Traces have been found of settlements dating back as far as the Old Stone Age. People lived on both sides of the Danube, where Budapest now stands, in the second millennium BC Bronze Age urn sites have also been uncovered. In the 6th C. BC Scythians from the Black Sea region settled here, and there are signs of Celto-Illyrian tribes having been here in the 4th/3rd C BC.

A decisive factor in the town's development was the building of a Roman fort in what is now Óbuda. The Roman base of Aquincum, separated into civilian and military districts, was the capital of the province of Pannonia and flourished during the second half of the 2nd C BC.

In the 5th C A.D. the Huns swept across the country, and King Attila set up a great new kingdom in what is now Hungary. From the 6th to the 9th C the Avars settled where Budapest now stands. About 896 the Magyars led by Prince Árpád settled in the area of present-day Óbuda.

Around the year 1000 Stephen (István) I, King of Hungary, organized a feudal state on the Central European model and introduced Christianity. A few years later merchants from central and western Europe settled in Buda and Pest and helped both places to develop ra