Hungary (Magyarország) in other languages: exonyms, Budapest and flag

Magyar, Hungaria and Vengrija: three names for one country

Hungarians call their country Magyarország, built from magyar, the name of the people and the language, and ország, country. The adjective is the same word, magyar. Other languages took up one of three different names.

The first comes from Latin Hungaria, still the Latin, Basque, Breton and Interlingua form. Related to it are Hungary, Hongrie, Ungheria, Hungría and the Germanic Ungarn, which Danish, Norwegian, German and Low German share; Icelandic builds Ungverjaland, Finnish Unkari and Bulgarian Унгария (Ungarija). Greek Ουγγαρία, Hebrew הונגריה and Japanese ハンガリー (Hangarī) belong to the same group.

The second takes the people's own name. Czech and Slovak say Maďarsko, Croatian and Serbian Mađarska, Slovenian Madžarska. Turkish has Macaristan and Persian مجارستان (Majârestân), both with the suffix -stan, and Kazakh and Tatar follow with Мажарстан and Маҗарстан. Arabic offers المجر (al-Maǧar) beside هنغاريا (Hunġāriyā), and Syriac writes ܡܓܪ (Magar).

The third family belongs to the east. Russian Венгрия (Vengrija) and Lithuanian Vengrija go together with Polish Węgry, Silesian Wyngry and Kashubian Wędżierskô, and Ukrainian has Угорщина (Uhorščyna), close to the Old Church Slavonic Ѫгри (Ǫgri). Several languages list two names side by side: Kazakh Мажарстан and Венгрия, Uzbek Mojoriston and Vengriya, Mongolian Унгар and Мажар.

Budapest and Budimpešta

Budapest keeps its spelling in Hungarian, English, French, Danish and German, but its last syllable moves with the sound of each language: Budapeszt in Polish, Budapešť in Czech and Slovak, Budapeşte in Turkish, Budapeste in Portuguese and Будапешт (Budapešt) in Russian. Bulgarian writes Будапеща (Budapešta) and Greek Βουδαπέστη (Voydapéstī).

Croatian, Slovenian, Bosnian and Serbian go their own way with Budimpešta. Latin has two names, Budapestinum and Aquincum. Chinese writes 布达佩斯 (Bùdápèisī), and Japanese uses both ブダペスト (Budapesuto) and the variant ブタペスト (Butapesuto), with t in place of d.

Megye, főváros and megyei jogú város

Hungary has 19 counties and the capital, which stands outside them, although Pest County has its seat in Budapest. Many county names join two or three names with hyphens, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén and Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg among them, and the newest double name is Csongrád-Csanád, which ISO recorded in place of Csongrád on 25 November 2021.

Cities with county rights, megyei jogú városok, are towns whose councils hold the powers of a county without forming a separate territory. Every county seat except Budapest has the rank, and so do Dunaújváros, Érd, Hódmezővásárhely, Nagykanizsa and Sopron, which ISO lists as well. Baja and Esztergom hold the rank too but have no ISO code, so the law counts 25 such cities and ISO 23.

The word for county changed for a while: between 2023 and 2026 the counties were officially called vármegye, the historic term built on vár, castle. The ISO list keeps the category name county, and the codes, two letters after HU-, have not changed since 2010.