Transformation of regional development disparities in Hungary, 1910–2011

Abstract

Based on quantitative methods, our research aims to shed new light on the transformation of regional development disparities in Hungary between 1910 and 2011. In order to measure the long- and mid-term changes, we chose a cross-sectional approach and collected data for the years 1910, 1970, 2001, 2011. We gathered the statistical data of villages, towns and cities from censuses, and aggregated the data within the boundaries of today’s local administrative units (174 Hungarian LAU1 districts) to facilitate the temporal comparison. By mapping regional differences in the age of the Austro–Hungarian Empire, in the era of Hungarian communism, and in the decades after 1990, our study revealed the stability of Hungarian regional development disparities over time, with each of the eras resembling each other very closely. The East-West divide, the centre-periphery differences, and the stark regional divisions have always been present in Hungary in the last century.

Only minor changes can be detected in the ranks of the well-off regions: the districts surrounding Budapest, the regional centres and their hinterland, and some Transdanubian districts have been continuously the most prosperous territories in Hungary. The continuity is also conspicuous on the other side of the regional development divide, with the North-East zone of Hungary remaining the less fortunate part of country. The districts of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county (save for Nyíregyháza), the middle part of the Tisza region and the Cserehát have not been able to improve their position.

This stability has been broken only by small groups of emerging and decreasing districts. Those districts that became tourism destinations (e.g. the districts around Lake Balaton or the districts with thermal spas) proved to be successful, together with the emerging peripheral zones of the Budapest metropolitan agglomeration. The position of South-West-Transdanubia and some planned industrial towns (e.g. the districts of Dunaújváros and Tiszaújváros) have also become better over the course of the last one hundred years. Most of the Northern Hungarian industrial towns, however, have never recovered from the shock of the economic restructuring of the late 1980s. Having been favoured under communism, they emerged rapidly in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and have been declining demographically and economically since 1990. The middle part of the Great Hungarian Plain has lost its former position for different reasons. This territory flourished until the early 20th century supplying the markets of the Austro–Hungarian Empire with agricultural products. Its decline started with the dissolution of the Empire, and continued in the 1950s and 1960s due to the harsh rural policy of the communist regime.