Hardly any other town is so closely linked with the beginnings of the Hungarian monarchy as Székesfehérvár. It can claim to be the oldest seat of the monarchy and also possesses (still present as ruins) the former sepulchral and coronation church of the Hungarian kings. This town, situated between the
foothills of the Bakony Forest and the Velencei Mountains, has a well preserved inner town, which is almost provincial Baroque in appearance with numerous places of interest. Székesfehérvár is the regional capital and important industrial center (aluminum, electronics, automobile manufacture).
History
The Magyars are said to have already settled in the region around Székesfehérvár at the time of the conquest. Prince Géza, the father of King Stephan I, erected a castle in 972 on a hill surrounded by marshes, where he was interred in 997. The town, which, under Stephan I, rose to be the second most important town after Esztergom, was first recorded as "Alba regia" (Latin: "white chair") in 1002. Around 1000 Stephan I commissioned the building of a Romanesque church in which Hungarian kings were crowned and interred until the 16th C. The town was spared the ravages of the Mongol attacks in the 13th C but not its capture by the Turks in 1543, who remained in Székesfehérvár almost 150 years (until 1688). At a time in which the Habsburgs and Ottomans were dividing up the empire between them and the seat of parliament had been moved to Bratislava the old royal town was compelled to forfeit its importance. Following its elevation to the seat of a bishop in 1777 it had expanded into a Baroque town by the end of the century with 12,000 inhabitants. In the 19th C the citizens drained the marshes and dismantled the town walls in order to extend the town outwards. Not until after the Second World War did the regional capital of Féjer develop into an important industrial center.
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