Old Village of Holloko and its Surroundings Hungary

Hollokö is an exceptional example of a deliberately preserved traditional human settlement representative of a culture that has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change. This village, which developed mainly during the 17th and 18th centuries, is a living example of rural life before the agricultural revolution of the 20th century. Located about 100 km north-east of Budapest, Hollokö is a small rural community whose 126 houses and farm buildings, strip-field farming, orchards, vineyards, meadows and woods cover 141 ha. The village and the surrounding area are given the same protection as a historic monument such as the castle. Mentioned as early as 1310, this castle, whose ruins lie to the north-west of the village today, played a decisive part in the feudal wars of the Palocz and the Hussite wars. It served as protection for the village whose ruins have been found a little way from its walls.

Continent: Europe

Country: Hungary

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (V)

Date of Inscription: 1987

Ottoman occupation

At the end of the Ottoman occupation (1683) the castle and the village were finally abandoned and the present village grew up below. It developed gradually throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. As was customary in the region, the first generation of inhabitants settled on either side of the main street. In this one-street village, subsequent generations built their houses at the back of the narrow family plots, thus progressively enlarging the built-up area. The barns were built apart from the village, on the edges of the fields, according to Palocz custom.

The development of the village and the soil can be traced from various documents. In 1782 it was still a typical one-street village. Later, a second street developed to the east of the main street. A plan of 1885 shows the topography was already like that of the present-day plan: the amount of cultivated land had reached its maximum by the mid-19th century and the village could therefore grow no further. Some limited growth started again in 1960 and is now strictly controlled.

Old Village of Holloko and its Surroundings Hungary

Browse Gallery Plus UNESCO Storyline

The inhabitants of Hollokö never heeded a 1783 decree prohibiting the use of wood for building, which considered it to be too inflammable. Consequently the village was periodically devastated by fire. The last of these fires dates back to 1909 but the houses were again built according to the traditional techniques of Palocz rural architecture: half-timbered houses on a stone base with roughcast white-washed walls, enhanced by high wooden pillared galleries and balconies on the street side protected by overhanging porch roofs. The church with its shingled tower is simply a transposition of this domestic architectural style.

Slideshow for this Heritage Site

Hollokö is a living community whose conservation not only includes farming activity but also ensures its success. It provides a certainly exceptional and maybe unique example of voluntary conservation of a traditional village with its soil. The plots that were modified by the regrouping of land were returned to their original strip shape. The vineyards, orchards and vegetable gardens have been recreated; the ecological balance has been restored, even in the forestry environment, taking infinite care to respect historical authenticity. Hollokö not only represents the Palocz subgroup within the Magyar entity, but also bears witness, for the whole of Central Europe, to the traditional forms of rural life, which were generally abolished by the agricultural revolution in the 20th century.

Browse All UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Hungary. The original UNESCO inscription Here!!!

Early Christian Necropolis of Pecs Hungary

The part of modern Hungary west of the Danube, which was first settled in the Neolithic period, came into the Roman Empire in the 1st century CE. It formed part of the Roman province of Pannonia. The town of Sopianae was founded on the southern slope of the Mecsek massif in the 2nd century by colonists coming from western Pannonia and Italy, who intermarried with the indigenous Illyrian-Celtic peoples. It became the headquarters of the civil governor (praeses) of the new province of Valeria at the end of the 3rd century. Sopianae was especially prosperous in the 4th century because of its situation at the junction of several important trading and military routes. Archaeological excavations have revealed a number of new public buildings in the forum area from this time.

Continent: Europe

Country: Hungary

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (III)(IV)

Date of Inscription: 2000

Christian Necropolis Christian burials

The town was also probably made the seat of an archbishopric around this time. There was a cemetery to the north of the town, with many Christian burials from the 4th century; in the post-Roman period, up to the 8th century, the imposing tombs probably served as shelters for different incoming groups of Huns, Germans, and Avars. It was not until the 9th century that Christianity was re-established in the town.

St Istvan (King Stephen I), founder of the Hungarian state, established one of his ten bishoprics there in 1009, no doubt influenced by the monumental Christian sepulchral buildings; the Cella Trichora was restored to its original use as a chapel. The fortified episcopal complex was to be expanded and reconstructed in the succeeding centuries, and it was within this enceinte that the Angevin King Laszlo I the Great established the first university in Hungary (1367). The medieval town grew outside the walls of the episcopal castle complex, and it was in turn fortified in the 15th century as protection against the growing Turkish threat.

Early Christian Necropolis of Pecs Hungary

Browse Gallery Plus UNESCO Storyline

Despite the heroic struggles of successive Hungarian monarchs over more than a century, the whole of the central part of the country was taken by the Ottomans in the mid-16th century. The episcopal castle of Pécs became the administrative centre of a sandjak. Most of the Hungarian inhabitants of the town fled, to be replaced by Moslems from Turkey or the Balkans, who demolished the churches and monasteries (with the exception of the cathedral) and used their stones for the construction of mosques and other Islamic buildings. The town walls were strengthened with bastions.

Slideshow for this Heritage Site

Pecs was freed from Ottoman rule in 1686, becoming part of the Habsburg lands. The bishopric was re-established and the town was repopulated with Hungarians and German colonists. The mosques and other Moslem buildings were converted for Christian purposes, although the baths (hammams) continued in use for a considerable time. The fortifications around the castle were demolished and the town began to take on a Baroque appearance. It was designated the administrative centre of a county and fine public buildings were added.

Pecs secured its independence from episcopal rule in 1780. During the 19th century it witnessed a spectacular development as a commercial centre, and was graced with many buildings in the architectural styles of the period - classical, romantic, historicizing, and eventually Art Nouveau. Fortunately, it was spared from inappropriate insertions during the second half of the 20th century.

Browse All UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Hungary. The original UNESCO inscription Here!!!

World Heritage Budapest Hungary

At the end of the 17th century a wall surrounded the city of Pest and for the most part Germans lived along the banks of the Danube. The areas outside of the city were arable land with fruit orchards, but by 1699 craftsmen had begun to establish suburban communities. From 1730 they began to settle an area then called Pacsirtamezq. In 1777 it was renamed Terezvaros after Saint Theresa and in honour of Maria Theresa. The parish church of Terezvaros was built in 1801-09 and by 1805 the current street grid had taken shape. Most of the merchants in the area settled and established themselves along Kiraly Street. At the beginning of the 20th century the areas of Erzsebetvaros and the City Park split off from this district.

Continent: Europe

Country: Hungary

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (II)(IV)

Date of Inscription: 2002

Budapest Nation's Capital

In 1841 Lajos Kossuth took up the idea of a large-scale promenade for Terezvaros. With the Union of Pest and Buda in 1873, Budapest truly became the nation's capital, developing at a faster rhythm than earlier; by the turn of the century it had become a modern metropolis with more than a million inhabitants. The symbol of this development is the radial Andrassy Avenue. There had been no attempts at organized urban development since the middle Ages, and the Hungarian capital needed to make up for this lack in a single great leap in terms of public services, transportation, and city planning. To execute this great leap forward a special commission, the Capital Communal Labour Board, was established on the model of the London Metropolitan Board of Works.

This commission planned and partially carried out construction of the avenue, as the modern city's stately promenade, along with the creation of essential infrastructure (transportation and utilities). The commission's establishment was decreed by a national act in 1870 and the state gave funds for its realization. The route of the avenue cut straight through an unregulated suburban area, thereby radically transforming its urban structure. Construction of the road began in 1872, the route was opened in 1876, and in one decade, by 1885, it was completed with 131 buildings.

World Heritage Budapest Hungary

Browse Gallery Plus UNESCO Storyline

The Siemens and Halske companies built the first underground railway on the European continent there in 1893-96. It starts in the heart of the city, near the banks of the Danube, and runs just beneath the surface for the length of Andrassy Avenue to the City Park. The railway served the Millennial Exhibition, organized in 1896 to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the Hungarian conquest. This also led to the construction of a memorial on Heroes' Square (1894- 1906), the development and extension of the landscape garden, the development of the Szechenyi Baths as an establishment for spa culture, and the Vajdahunyad Castle that displayed the different periods of Hungarian architecture.

Slideshow for this Heritage Site

Browse All UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Hungary. The original UNESCO inscription Here!!!

Tokaj Wine Region Historic Cultural Landscape Hungary

The entire landscape of the Tokaji wine region, including both vineyards and long established settlements, vividly illustrates a specialized form of traditional land use and represents a distinct viticultural tradition that has existed for at least 1,000 years and which has survived intact to the present day. The Magyar tribes who entered the area at the end of the 9th century assigned special significance to the region, as they believed (with some justification) that it was the centre of the empire of Attila the Hun, with whom they closely identified themselves. It became a protected refuge for Hungarians in the centuries that followed in the face of pressure from invading Mongols and others, as well as an important commercial crossroads for Polish merchants travelling to the Balkans and elsewhere.

Continent: Europe

Country: Hungary

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (III)(V)

Date of Inscription: 2002

Tokaj Wine Region's 12th Centaury

Settlers were welcomed from as early as the 12th century, when Walloon and Italian immigrants were invited in, joining the Germans who had been there since the beginning of the Hungarian kingdom. In the 16th century the region came under Bohemian Hussite domination for a while, but was reunited with the Hungarian kingdom by the last great Hungarian king, Hunyadi Matyas (Matthias Corvinus). It was during the Ottoman period that the Tokaji Aszu for which the region became world famous was first produced. Legend has it that fears of Turkish raiders delayed the harvest in Lorantffy Mihaly's domain until the grapes had shrivelled and Botrytis infection had set in, creating the 'noble rot' (pourriture noble ). Nonetheless, the pastor Szepsi Laczko Mate made wine from them, presenting the result to the daughter of the overlord.

The mild climate makes coupled with the soil quality and aspects of the slopes make Tokaj perfect for cultivating grapes. The settlement system and forms of the Tokaji Wine Region are dictated by the morphological and hydrographic features of the area. There are two main axes of settlement, one the river Bodrog and the other the Szerencs stream and the river Hernád at the western edge. There is a chain of settlements along the right bank of the Bodrog as it meanders at the foot of the Zemplen mountain range.

Tokaj Wine Region Historic Cultural Landscape Hungary

Browse Gallery Plus UNESCO Storyline

Other settlements are to be found in the valleys of the streams that feed into the Bodrog, which in its turn joins the Tisza at Tokaj, an ancient crossing point of the main river. The Szerencs opens wide into the Takta and has settlements on both banks. The name 'Tokaj' is derived from an Armenian word for grape that came into the Hungarian language as early as the 10th century, thus giving a date for the creation of the settlement. It is also evidence that viticulture was already being practised here at that time.

Slideshow for this Heritage Site

The built heritage of the region is symbolic of its history and its socio-economic structure. There are to be found medieval Roman Catholic churches (one in each settlement), 18th- to 19th-century Orthodox churches, and Jewish synagogues, princely and aristocratic castles and mansions, and more humble houses, wine stores, and workshops. Evidence of early settlement is the 12th century Romanesque church at Bodrogalszi (in the buffer zone). There are ruined 14th-century castles at Tokaj and Tallya in the nominated area and Monok, Sarospatak, and Szerencs in the buffer zone. Noble mansions from the 18th and 19th centuries are to be found at Tarcal and in the buffer zone.

The most characteristic structures in Tokaj are the wine cellars: that of King Kalman in Tarcal is known to have been in existence as early as 1110. There are two basic types of cellar in Tokaj: the vaulted and the excavated. The former was essentially an open space below a residential building, excavated before the house was built and accessed from the porch. The grapes were processed in a room at the rear of the house, immediately above the cellar. The excavated cellars were not connected directly with the residential buildings. All that is visible on the surface is a stone entrance structure with a latticed wooden or steel gate. Cellars carved into the volcanic tuff did not require reinforcement by vaulting. Some 80-85% of the cellars in Tokaj were made in this way.

Of special interest are the multi-level labyrinthine cellars with unsystematic floors plans in which wine was stored and matured in casks made from sessile oak. The most famous is the cellar network in the Ungvari district of Satoraljaujhely, the result of interconnecting no fewer than 27 cellars at different levels.

Browse All UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Hungary. The original UNESCO inscription Here!!!

Ferto-Neusiedler Cultural Landscape Hungary

The Ferto-Neusiedler Lake and its surroundings are an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement and land use representative of a culture. The present character of the landscape is the result of millennia-old land-use forms based on stockraising and viticulture to an extent not found in other European lake areas. The historic centre of the medieval free town of Rust constitutes an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement representative of the area. The town exhibits the special building mode of a society and culture within which the lifestyles of townspeople and farmers form a united whole. The Ferto-Neusiedler Lake has been the meeting place of different cultures for eight millennia, and this is graphically demonstrated by its varied landscape, the result of an evolutionary and symbiotic process of human interaction with the physical environment.

Continent: Europe

Country: Hungary

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (V)

Date of Inscription: 2001

Ferto-Neusiedler Lake

The lake lies between the Alps, 70 km distant, and the lowlands in the territory of two states, Austria and Hungary. The lake itself is in an advanced state of sedimentation, with extensive reed stands. It has existed for 500 years within an active water management regime. In the 19th century, canalization of Hanság shut the lake off from its freshwater marshland. Since 1912 completion of a circular dam ending at Hegykö to the south has prevented flooding.

Two broad periods may be discerned: from around 6000 BC until the establishment of the Hungarian state in the 11th century AD and from the 11th century until the present. The World Heritage site lies in a region that was Hungarian territory from the 10th century until the First World War. From the 7th century BC the lake shore was densely populated, initially by people of the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture and on through late prehistoric and Roman times. In the fields of almost every village around the Lake there are remains of Roman villas. The basis of the current network of towns and villages was formed in the 12th and 13th centuries, their markets flourishing from 1277 onwards, when they were relieved of many fiscal duties.

Ferto-Neusiedler Cultural Landscape Hungary

Browse Gallery Plus UNESCO Storyline

The mid-13th century Tatar invasion left this area unharmed, and it enjoyed uninterrupted development throughout medieval times until the Turkish conquest in the late 16th century. The economic basis throughout was the export of animals and wine. Rust in particular prospered on the wine trade. Its refortification in the early 16th century as a response to the then emerging Ottoman threat marked the beginning of a phase of construction in the area, first with fortifications and then, during the 17th-19th centuries, with the erection and adaptation of domestic buildings. The remarkable rural architecture of the villages surrounding the lake and several 18th-and 19th-century palaces add to the area's considerable cultural interest. The palace of the township of Nagycenk and the Fertöd Palace are included in detached areas of the core zone outside the buffer zone.

Slideshow for this Heritage Site

Széchenyi Palace, at the southern end of the lake, is a detached ensemble of buildings in the centre of a large park, initially built in the mid-18th century on the site of a former manor house. It acquired some of its present form and appearance around 1800. The Baroque palace garden was originated in the 17th century. In the late 18th century an English-style landscape garden was laid out.

Between 1769 and 1790 Josef Haydn's compositions were first heard in the Fertöd Esterházy Palace. It was the most important 18th-century palace of Hungary, built on the model of Versailles. The plan of the palace, garden and park was on geometrical lines which extended to the new village of Esterháza. There, outside the palace settlement, were public buildings, industrial premises and residential quarters. The palace itself is laid out around a square with rounded internal corners. To the south is an enormous French Baroque garden that has been changed several times, the present layout being essentially that of 1762.

Browse All UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Hungary. The original UNESCO inscription Here!!!

Hortobagy National Park the Puszta Hungary

The landscape of the Hungarian Pasta, an outstanding example of a cultural landscape shaped by a pastoral human society, preserves intact and visible the evidence of its traditional use over more than two millennia and represents the harmonious interaction between human beings and nature. The Puszta consists of a vast area of plains and wetlands in eastern Hungary. Traditional forms of land use, such as the grazing of domestic animals, have been present in this pastoral society for more than two millennia.

Continent: Europe

Country: Hungary

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (IV)(V)

Date of Inscription: 1999

The Hortobagy National Park

The Hortobagy National Park is part of the Tisza plain of eastern Hungary. It is surrounded by settlements to the south, east and west. The two main settlements are Tiszafured on the Tisza River and the city of Debrecen. The two are linked by the main historic communication ridge route. Numerous peoples migrated from the east into the Carpathian Basin in prehistory. The nomadic group who arrived around 2000 BC at the end of the Bronze Age were the first to leave their imprint on the natural landscape in the form of many burial mounds (kurgans ). Their dimensions are variable - 5-10 m high and 20-50 m in diameter - and they are generally conical or hemispherical. They are always to be found on dry land, but located near a source of water.

They were often used for secondary burials by later peoples, and in some cases Christian churches were built on them by the Hungarians. Also to found in the park are the low mounds (tells) that mark the sites of ancient settlements, now disappeared. Settlement in the middle Ages followed the Debrecen-Tiszafured route. The main group was in the area defined by the existing settlements of Hortobagy, Naghegyes, Naduvdar and Nagyiván. Documentary records have shown that many of these had churches.

Hortobagy National Park the Puszta Hungary

Browse Gallery Plus UNESCO Storyline

The Hungarians arrived in what is now Hungary at the end of the 9th century under their leader, Arpád. As the area was ideal for animal husbandry, they occupied the lands around the Tisza River in the 10th and 11th centuries, and by the early 13th century there was a dense network of settlements, whose economic base was pastoralism, in the Hortobágy, the main axis of which was the trading route from Buda through Tiszafúred and Debrecen into Transylvania.

Slideshow for this Heritage Site

With the progressive depopulation of the region from the 14th century onwards, the settlements disappeared. The only manmade features in the wide plains of the Puszta were light temporary structures of reeds and branches, used to provide winter shelter for animals and men. The sole surviving structures from this time, which were public buildings built from stone, are the bridges and the csardas . The Nine Arch Bridge at Hortobagy is the longest stone bridge in Hungary. A wooden bridge known to have been in existence as early as the 14th century was replaced in 1827-33 by the existing structure in classical style. The Zador Bridge in the southern part of the National Park was built in 1809 with nine arches, but the two side piers were swept away by a flood on the Zádor River in 1830 and never replaced. The csardas were provincial inns built in the 18th and 19th centuries to provide food and lodging for travellers.

The typical csarda consists of two buildings facing one another, both single-storeyed and thatched or, occasionally, roofed with shingles or tiles. A tavern was normally set up on the side of the road with a railed-off counter in a room that had access to the wine cellar. A few also had one or two guest rooms. On the opposite side of the road from the csárda was provision for horses and carriages. The best known of the csardas are at Balmazújváros (18th century), Hortobagy (first built in 1699 and reconstructed on several occasions), Nagyhegyes (early 19th century), Nagyivan (mid-18th century), and Tiszafüred (c. 1770).

In the early 19th century, water regulation systems were set up, notably control over flooding of the Tisza River: this resulted in the draining of former wetlands, which were converted to arable farming. Reduction of the water available for the natural pastures decreased their fertility, which was the cause of serious overgrazing in the early part of the 20th century. Efforts were made to diversify the land use of the Hortobágy, the most successful of which was the creation of artificial fishponds between 1914 and 1918 and again in the 1950s.

Browse All UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Hungary. The original UNESCO inscription Here!!!