There are two main groups of the Hungarian diaspora: the first group includes those who are autochthonous to their homeland and live outside Hungary since the border changes of the post-World War I Treaty of Trianon of 1920. [2] [note 1] The victorious forces redrew the borders of Hungary so that it runs through Hungarian-majority areas. As a consequence, 3.3 million Hungarians found themselves outside the new borders. Although those Hungarians are usually not included in the term "Hungarian diaspora", [3] they are listed as such in this article. The other main group is the emigrants who left Hungary at various times (such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956). There has been some emigration since Hungary joined the EU in 2004, especially to countries such as Germany, [4] but those patterns have been less extensive than for certain other countries of Central Europe such as Poland and Slovakia.
Additionally, there is the Magyarab people, a small ethnic group located in Egypt and Sudan. [5]
Country | Hungarian population | Note | Article |
---|---|---|---|
Neighboring countries | |||
Romania | 1,002,151 (2021) [6] (excluding Csángós) [7] | Native to Transylvania, [8] Csángós in Western Moldavia (moved from Transylvania there in the past), and a very small community of Szeklers also in Bukovina (see also Székelys of Bukovina ) | Hungarians in Romania |
Slovakia | 456,154 (2021) [9] | Autochthonous [10] | Hungarians in Slovakia |
Serbia | 184,442 (2021) [11] | Autochthonous in Vojvodina | Hungarians in Serbia |
Ukraine | 156,600 (2001) [12] | Autochthonous in Zakarpattia Oblast | Hungarians in Ukraine |
Austria | 107,347 (2024) [13] | Autochthonous in Burgenland | Hungarians in Austria |
Croatia | 10,315 (2021) [14] | Autochthonous in Croatia, except in Istria and Dalmatia | Hungarians in Croatia |
Slovenia | 10,500 (2021) [15] | Autochthonous in Prekmurje | Hungarians in Slovenia |
Other countries | |||
United States | 1,563,081 (2006) [16] | Immigrants | Hungarian Americans |
Canada | 348,085 (2016) [17] | Immigrants | Hungarian Canadians |
Germany | 296,000 (2021) [18] | Immigrants | Hungarians in Germany |
Israel | 200,000 to 250,000 (2000s) [19] | Immigrants; most are Hungarian Jews | |
United Kingdom | 200,000 to 250,000 (2020) [20] [21] | Immigrants | Hungarians in the United Kingdom |
France | 200,000 to 250,000 (2021) [22] [23] | Immigrants | Hungarians in France |
Brazil | 80,000 (2002) [24] | Immigrants | Hungarian Brazilians |
Russia | 76,500 (2002) | Immigrants | Hungarians in Russia |
Australia | 69,167 (2011) [25] | Immigrants | Hungarian Australians |
Argentina | 40,000 to 50,000 (2016) [26] | Immigrants | Hungarian Argentines |
Sweden | 33,018 (2018) [27] | Immigrants | Hungarians in Sweden |
Switzerland | 27,000 (2019) [28] | Immigrants | |
Netherlands | 26,172 (2020) [29] | Immigrants | |
Czech Republic | 20,000 (2013) [30] | People of Hungarian descent forcibly relocated from the Slovak part of the Third Czechoslovak Republic | |
Belgium | 15,000 (2013) [30] | Immigrants | |
Italy | 14,000 (2019) [28] | Immigrants | |
Spain | 10,000 (2019) [28] | Immigrants | |
Ireland | 9,000 (2019) [28] | Immigrants | |
Norway | 8,316 (2015) [31] | Immigrants | |
New Zealand | 7,000 (2013) [30] | Immigrants | Hungarian New Zealanders |
Turkey | 6,800 (2001) | Immigrants | Hungarians in Turkey |
Denmark | 6,000 (2019) [28] | Immigrants | |
Japan | 5,600 (2022) [28] | Immigrants | |
Bosnia and Herzegovina | 4,000[ citation needed ] | Immigrants | |
South Africa | 4,000 (2013) [30] | Immigrants | |
Venezuela | 4,000 (2013) [30] | Immigrants | Hungarian Venezuelans |
Mexico | 3,500 (2006) | Immigrants | Hungarian Mexicans |
Finland | 3,000 (2019) [28] | Immigrants | Hungarians in Finland |
Uruguay | 3,000 (2013) [30] | Immigrants | Hungarian Uruguayans |
Greece | 2,387 (2018) [21] | Immigrants | |
Chile | 2,000 (2012) [32] | Immigrants | Hungarians in Chile |
Luxembourg | 2,000 (2019) [28] | Immigrants | |
Poland | 1,728 (2011) [33] | Immigrants | Hungarians in Poland |
Portugal | 1,230 (2022) [34] | Foreign citizens only; for instance, excludes 79 Luso-Hungarians who have acquired Portuguese citizenship since 2008 [35] | |
Jordan | 1,000 (2019) [28] | Immigrants | |
Cyprus | 620 (2018) [21] | Immigrants | |
Kazakhstan | 500 (2021) [36] | Immigrants | |
Montenegro | 400[ citation needed ] | Immigrants | |
Latvia | 300[ citation needed ] | Immigrants | |
Uzbekistan | 300[ citation needed ] | Immigrants | |
Philippines | 206 (2010) [37] | Immigrants | |
Iceland | 200 (2015) [31] | Immigrants | |
North Macedonia | 200[ citation needed ] | Immigrants | |
Estonia | 173 (2018) [21] | Immigrants | |
Bulgaria | 153 (2015) [31] | Immigrants | |
Vietnam | 100 (2015) [38] | Immigrants | |
Liechtenstein | 44 (2015) [31] | Immigrants | |
Lithuania | 23 (2015) [31] | Immigrants | |
Total | 5.2–5.5 million | Hungarians |
Hungarian immigration patterns to Western Europe increased in the 1990s and especially since 2004, after Hungary's admission in the European Union. Thousands of Hungarians from Hungary sought available work through guest-worker contracts in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal.
A proposal supported by the DAHR to grant Hungarian citizenship to Hungarians living in Romania but without meeting Hungarian-law residency requirements was narrowly defeated at a 2004 referendum in Hungary. [39] The referendum was invalid because of not enough participants. After the failure of the 2004 referendum, the leaders of the Hungarian ethnic parties in the neighboring countries formed the HTMSZF organization in January 2005, as an instrument lobbying for preferential treatment in the granting of Hungarian citizenship. [40]
In 2010, some amendments were passed in Hungarian law facilitating an accelerated naturalization process for ethnic Hungarians living abroad; among other changes, the residency-in-Hungary requirement was waived. [41] In May 2010, Slovakia announced it would strip Slovak citizenship from anyone applying for Hungarian citizenship. [42] Romania's President Traian Băsescu declared in October 2010: "We have no objections to the adoption by the Hungarian government and parliament of a law making it easier to grant Hungarian citizenship to ethnic Hungarians living abroad." [43]
The new citizenship law took effect on 1 January 2011. It did not grant the right to vote, even in national elections, to Hungarian citizens unless they also resided in Hungary on a permanent basis. [44] In February 2011, the Fidesz government announced that it intended to grant the right to vote to its new citizens. [45] Between 2011 and 2012, 200,000 applicants took advantage of the new, accelerated naturalization process; [46] there were another 100,000 applications pending in the summer of 2012. [47] As of February 2013, the Hungarian government had granted citizenship to almost 400,000 Hungarians ‘beyond the borders’. [48] In June 2013, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén announced that he expected the number to reach about half a million by the end of the year. [49]
Hungarian citizens abroad have been able to participate in the parliamentary elections without Hungarian residency starting from the 2014 Hungarian parliamentary election, however, they cannot vote for a candidate running for the seat in a single-seat constituency, but for a party list.
Country | Name | Occupation | Source |
---|---|---|---|
Austria | Ferenc Anisits | Engineer | |
United States | Albert-László Barabási | Physicist and discoverer of scale-free networks | |
United States | Drew Barrymore | Actress | [50] [51] |
Austria | Béla Barényi | Engineer and prolific inventor | |
Germany | Josef von Báky | Film director | |
United States | Béla Bartók | Composer | |
United States | Zoltán Bay | Physicist and engineer | |
United States | György von Békésy | Biophysicist and Nobel Prize winner | |
United States | Pal Benko | Chess player and a record eight-time U.S. Open winner | |
United States | Adrien Brody | Actor and youngest winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor | [52] |
United States | György Buzsáki [53] | Neuroscientist | |
United States | Mihály Csíkszentmihályi | Psychologist of flow | |
United States | Larry Csonka | American football fullback | |
United States | Tony Curtis | Actor | [54] [55] |
France | György Cziffra | Pianist | |
United States Mexico | Louis C.K. | Comedian | [56] |
United States | Rodney Dangerfield | Comedian | [57] |
United States | Frank Darabont | Film director and screenplay writer | |
United States | Ernst von Dohnányi | Composer, pianist, and conductor | |
United States | Bobby Fischer | Chess player | |
Germany | Ferenc Fricsay | Conductor | |
United Kingdom | Stephen Fry | Comedian | [58] |
United States | Zsa Zsa Gabor | Actress | [59] |
United States | Peter Carl Goldmark | Engineer and inventor | |
United States | Andrew Grove | Businessman and entrepreneur | |
United States | Mickey Hargitay | Actor, body builder, and 1955 Mr. Universe | |
United States | Harry Houdini | Escapologist and magician | |
United States | Tim Howard | Soccer goalkeeper | |
Sweden Germany | George de Hevesy | Radiochemist and co-discoverer of hafnium | [60] |
United States | Ilonka Karasz | Designer and illustrator known for her many New Yorker magazine covers | |
United States | Katalin Karikó | Biochemist and Nobel Prize winner | |
United States | Theodore von Kármán | Aeronautical engineer | |
United States | John George Kemeny | Mathematician, computer scientist, and co-developer of BASIC | [61] |
United States | Laszlo B. Kish | Physicist | |
Sweden | George Klein | Microbiologist and author | |
Austria | Ferenc Krausz | Physicist and Nobel Prize winner | |
Belgium | Alexandre Lamfalussy | Economist | |
Germany | Philipp Lenard | Physicist and Nobel Prize winner | |
United States | Bela Lugosi | Actor | |
Mexico | Luis Mandoki | Film director | |
United States | Ilona Massey | Actress | |
United States | Paul Neményi | Physicist and mathematician | [62] |
United States | John von Neumann | Mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, and polymath | [63] [64] |
Slovakia | Ľudovít Ódor | Prime Minister, Deputy Governor of the national bank | |
United States | Thomas Peterffy | Businessman and founder of Interactive Brokers | |
United States | Joaquin Phoenix | Actor | [65] |
United States | Joseph Pulitzer | Journalist | [66] |
United Kingdom | Árpád Pusztai | Biochemist | |
Slovakia | Ľudovít Rajter | Conductor | |
France | Nicolas Sarkozy | 23rd President of France | [67] |
Austria | Franz Schmidt | Composer | |
United States | Jerry Seinfeld | Comedian, actor, writer, and producer | [68] |
United States | Monica Seles | Tennis player | |
United States | Gene Simmons | Musician | [69] |
Canada | Hans Selye | Endocrinologist | |
United States | Charles Simonyi | Software architect | |
United States | Victor Szebehely | Astronomist and physicist | |
United States | Albert Szent-Györgyi | Biochemist and Nobel Prize winner | |
United States | Leó Szilárd | Physicist and inventor | [70] |
United States | Mária Telkes | Biophysicist and inventor | |
United States | Edward Teller | Physicist, engineer, and “father of the hydrogen bomb | [71] |
United Kingdom | Kálmán Tihanyi | Physicist, engineer, and inventor | |
Czech Republic | Tomáš Ujfaluši | Association football player | |
France | Victor Vasarely | Artist of op art movement | |
United States | Gabriel von Wayditch | Composer | |
Germany | Richárd Zsigmondy | Chemist and Nobel Prize winner | |
France | Gyula Halász (Brassaï) | Photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker | |
United States | Ivan Soltész | Scientist | |
Czech Republic | Tomáš Ujfaluši | Football player | |
Israel | Yair Lapid | Former Prime Minister of Israel | |
Israel | Benny Gantz | Former Israeli Minister of Defence |
Since the Hungarian diaspora could start voting in elections in Hungary from 2012, [72] they have overwhelmingly supported the ruling Fidesz. In the 2014 Hungarian parliamentary election, Fidesz won over 95% of the vote, [73] in the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election, over 96%, while in the 2019 European Parliament election in Hungary, Fidesz received 96%. [74]
In several Eastern European countries, parties that represent the interests of Hungarian minorities have emerged.
The Treaty of Trianon often referred to as the Peace Dictate of Trianon or Dictate of Trianon in Hungary, was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference and was signed on the one side by Hungary and, on the other, by the Allied and Associated Powers, in the Grand Trianon château in Versailles on 4 June 1920. It formally terminated the state of war issued from World War I between most of the Allies of World War I and the Kingdom of Hungary. The treaty is mostly famous due to the territorial changes induced on Hungary and recognizing its new international borders after the First World War.
Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Hungary led by Viktor Orbán. It has increasingly identified as illiberal.
Viktor Mihály Orbán is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002, and the leader of the Fidesz political party since 2003, and previously from 1993 to 2000. He was reelected as prime minister in 2014, 2018, and 2022. On 29 November 2020, he became the country's longest-serving prime minister.
Hungarian irredentism or Greater Hungary are irredentist political ideas concerning redemption of territories of the historical Kingdom of Hungary. The objective is to at least to regain control over Hungarian-populated areas in Hungary's neighbouring countries. Hungarian historiography uses the term "Historic Hungary". "Whole Hungary" is also commonly used by supporters of this ideology.
The Jobbik – Movement for a Better Hungary, commonly known as Jobbik, and previously known as Conservatives between 2023 and 2024, is a conservative political party in Hungary.
The Romanian diaspora is the ethnically Romanian population outside Romania and Moldova. The concept does not usually include the ethnic Romanians who live as natives in nearby states, chiefly those Romanians who live in Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Therefore, the number of all Romanians abroad is estimated at 4–12 million people, depending on one's definition of the term "Romanian" as well as the inclusion respectively exclusion of ethnic Romanians living in nearby countries where they are indigenous. The definition of "who is a Romanian?" may range from rigorous conservative estimates based on self-identification and official statistics to estimates that include people of Romanian ancestry born in their respective countries as well as people born to various ethnic-minorities from Romania. As of 2015/16, over 97% of Romanian emigrants resided in OECD countries; and about 90% of Romanian emigrants in OECD countries lived in Europe, with the most common country of residence being Italy. The vast majority of Romanian emigrants are based in just ten countries, with the most common countries being Italy, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Hungary, France and Canada.
The population of Budapest was 1,735,041 on 1 January 2013. According to the 2011 census, the Budapest metropolitan area was home to 2,530,167 people and the Budapest commuter area had 3.3 million inhabitants. The Hungarian capital is the largest in the Pannonian Basin and the ninth largest in the European Union. Budapest is also the primate city of Hungary and some neighbouring territories.
Hungary and Slovakia are two neighboring countries in Central Europe. There are two major periods of official foreign relations between them in contemporary history. The first period included relations between the Kingdom of Hungary and the first Slovak Republic in 1939–1945. The second period started in 1993, when the countries again established diplomatic relations, the year when Slovakia became independent of Czechoslovakia. Hungary has an embassy in Bratislava and a general consulate in Košice, and in Nitra, and Slovakia has an embassy in Budapest and a general consulate in Békéscsaba.
The Hungarian minority of Romania is the largest ethnic minority in Romania. As per the 2021 Romanian census, 1,002,151 people declared themselves Hungarian, while 1,038,806 people stated that Hungarian was their mother tongue.
Sándor Fazekas is a Hungarian jurist and politician. He served as Minister of Rural Development, then Minister of Agriculture from 2010 to 2018, in the second and third cabinets of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He served as mayor of his hometown, Karcag between 1990 and 2010.
The second government of Viktor Orbán or the Government of National Cooperation was the Government of Hungary from 29 May 2010 to 6 June 2014. Orbán formed his second cabinet after his party, Fidesz won the outright majority in the first round on April 11, with the Fidesz-KDNP alliance winning 206 seats, including 119 individual seats. In the final result, they won 263 seats, of which 173 are individual seats. Fidesz held 227 of these seats, giving it an outright majority in the National Assembly by itself.
Slovak nationality law is the law governing the acquisition, transmission and loss of Slovak citizenship. The Citizenship Act is a law enacted by the National Council of Slovakia in regard to the nationality law following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. In 2010, it was controversially amended, enacting loss of Slovak citizenship upon naturalization elsewhere. This was said to have affected the 2012 election to some degree.
An election of Members of the European Parliament from Hungary to the European Parliament was held on 25 May 2014.
Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 6 April 2014. This parliamentary election was the 7th since the 1990 first multi-party election. The result was a victory for the Fidesz–KDNP alliance, preserving its two-thirds majority, with Viktor Orbán remaining Prime Minister. It was the first election under the new Constitution of Hungary which came into force on 1 January 2012. The new electoral law also entered into force that day. For the first time since Hungary's transition to democracy, the election had a single round. The voters elected 199 MPs instead of the previous 386 lawmakers.
Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 8 April 2018. The elections were the second since the adoption of a new constitution, which came into force on 1 January 2012. The result was a victory for the Fidesz–KDNP alliance, preserving its two-thirds majority, with Viktor Orbán remaining Prime Minister. Orbán and Fidesz campaigned primarily on the issues of immigration and foreign meddling, and the election was seen as a victory for right-wing populism in Europe.
A referendum related to the European Union's migrant relocation plans was held in Hungary on 2 October 2016. The referendum was initiated by the government, under the provision of article 8 of the new constitution of 2012. It was commonly referred to as the kvótanépszavazás or kvótareferendum in the Hungarian media.
Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 3 April 2022 to elect the National Assembly, coinciding with a referendum. Hungary's incumbent prime minister Viktor Orbán won re-election to a fourth term. Addressing his supporters after the partial results showed Fidesz leading by a wide margin, Orbán said: "We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels." Opposition leader Péter Márki-Zay admitted defeat shortly after Orbán's speech. Reuters described it as a "crushing victory".
An election of Members of the European Parliament from Hungary to the European Parliament was held on 26 May 2019, electing the 21 members of the Hungary delegation to the European Parliament as part of the European elections held across the European Union.
The Trianon syndrome or Trianon trauma is the name given to a social phenomenon mostly occurring in Hungary. It consists of resentment about the consequences of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon and the belief that Hungary was better in the past than in the present. The Treaty of Trianon was a peace treaty signed after World War I through which the Kingdom of Hungary lost over two-thirds of its land to Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Poland and Romania. The Trianon syndrome may also be considered as existing in some of these countries in the form of worry about Hungarian revisionism.
Péter Magyar is a Hungarian politician, European Parliament member and lawyer. He is the incumbent President of the Respect and Freedom (Tisza) Party, which is currently the largest opposition party in Hungary. As such, he is widely expected to be Viktor Orbán's challenger in the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary elections.
Since the Great Powers who dictated the peace terms disregarded the principle of national self-determination in Hungary's case and did not draw the new borders of Hungary to follow ethnic and linguistic lines, 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians were lost to the successor states.
Hungarian communities abroad can be divided into at least two major categories. On the one hand, the so-called indigenous (autochthonous) minority communities – established as a result of border changes, mainly the new state borders set out in the Treaty of Trianon. On the other hand, diaspora communities of migratory (allochthonous) origin.
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