Hungary

Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe's Carpathian Basin, bordered by Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria, with Budapest as its capital. After settlement by Celts, Romans, Huns, Germanic peoples, Avars and Slavs, the Principality of Hungary emerged in the late ninth century and became a medieval Christian kingdom under King Stephen I in the year 1000; following the Ottoman defeat of the Hungarian army at Mohacs in 1526, the kingdom split into three regions for more than 150 years before Habsburg reunification, and the Compromise of 1867 created the Austro-Hungarian monarchy that lasted until the end of the First World War. The 1920 Treaty of Trianon fixed Hungary's much reduced modern borders, and after Soviet occupation the country existed as the communist Hungarian People's Republic and a Warsaw Pact satellite state until the Revolutions of 1989 brought a peaceful transition to democratic parliamentary rule. Hungary operates as a unitary parliamentary republic, joined the European Union in 2004, and with a population exceeding 9.5 million as of January 2026 is classified as a high income economy providing universal health care and tuition-free tertiary education.