Hungary

Hungary ( Hungarian: Magyarország), officially the Republic of Hungary (Magyar Köztársaság) "Hungarian Republic", is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian.

Following a Celtic (after c. 450 BC) and a Roman (9 BC – c. 5th century) period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late Ninth Century by the Magyar chieftain Árpád, whose great grandson Stephen I ascended to the throne with a crown sent from Rome in 1000. The Kingdom of Hungary existed with interruptions for 946 years, and was at times regarded as one of the cultural centers of the Western world (particularly during Stephen I, Béla III, Louis I, Matthias I, and Lajos Kossuth's regency). A significant power until its defeat in World War I, Hungary lost over two-thirds of its territory (along with 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians) in the Treaty of Trianon in 1920,[4] the terms of which have been considered humiliating by Hungarians. Following a short alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II, the kingdom was occupied by the Soviet Union which imposed a Stalinist government from 1947 to 1989. During this era, Hungary gained widespread international recognition by mounting the Revolution of 1956 and the seminal move of opening its border with Austria in 1989, thus accelerating the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The present form of government is parliamentary republic (since 1989). Today, Hungary is a high-income economy, and a regional leader regarding certain markers.

In the past decade, Hungary was listed as the 10th most economically dynamic area and one of the 15 most popular tourist destinations in the world, with a capital regarded as "one of the most beautiful urban landscapes in the world". The country is home to the second largest thermal lake in the world (Lake Hévíz), the largest lake in Central Europe (Lake Balaton), and the largest natural grassland in Europe (Hortobágy).