History Of Budapest

Buda is built on a number of hills, with its highest point 529 m. above sea level. Pest lies on level ground that forms part of the Great Hungarian Plain. The Danube at Budapest is a busy waterway, varying in width from 300 to 600 m. and enclosing five islands, of which Csepel in the south of the city is the largest. The city has several medicinal springs, some thermal. 

Budapest is today the second most populous city in central Europe. Its 2,089,533 inhabitants in 1978 made up 19,6% of Hungary's population and included 27,8% of the country's industrial workforce. The city's area is 525.20 sq.km., two-thirds of which are on the Pest side of the river. The development plan approved by the Hungarian Council of Ministers in 1971 regards 44 communities outside the city boundaries as parts of the Budapest conurbation. 

Archaeological discoveries confirm that there have been important settlements on the site of present-day Budapest for thousands of years. Celtic tribes settled on both banks of the Danube in the 3rd century BC. After the conquest of Pannonia, the Romans in the last decades BC built the town of Aquincum on the site of the Celtic settlement of Ak-ink, on the right bank of the river.
 
In AD 124 Aquincum became the provincial capital of Lower Pannonia. Contra-Aquincum, built in AD 294 on the left bank, was the most important of a string of fortresses along the Danube designed to guard the borders and the river crossing points. 

Roman rule came to an end in AD 409 with the arrival of the Huns. After the disintegration of the Hunnish Empire in AD 453, Iranic and Germanic peoples took possession of the territory of present-day Hungary, followed at the end of the 6th century by the Avars. The Avars were in turn conquered by the Franks, but small groups of Avars and Slavs were still living here when the Hungarian conquest began at the end of the 9th century. 

Prince Árpád, the military leader of the Hungarian settlers, made his headquarters on Csepel Island, while the chief priest, Kursan, took up residence in the former town of Aquincum, which became the first major Hungarian settlement. (The Roman amphitheatre of which remains still survive in Nagyszombat utca in Budapest's 3rd district was referred to as Kursan's Castle in charters as late as the 14th century.) 

In the 11th century the king founded a priory in the town. It also became the centre of the royal estates and the royal seat, where King Béla III (1172-1196) received Frederick Barbarossa as he passed through Hungary on his way to the Holy Land. This town was called Buda until the 13th century. Early 13th century documents state that it was inhabited by Latin merchants (probably Walloons), but in the later 13th century there are references to German citizens."

Source: Budapest City Archives