ClTIES, URBAN POPULATION GROWTH AND URBANIZATION IN HISTORICAL HUNGARY (1870)

Abstract

Examining the urban population of some regions and administrative units of historical Hungary, a differentiated spatial structure emerges, in which the centuries-old urban development is reflected in the foundations. The state of the early 1870s can also be interpreted as: our feudal city network - with minor corrections - reached the peak of its development, at least it was complete in a legal sense. The basic question of the research is the number of cities, the degree of urbanization and the value of urbanity, i.e. how much is too much? According to the data of the official census carried out at the beginning of 1870, there were 958 cities in historical Hungary. 28.8% of the country's inhabitants (4445927 people) lived in these cities. 26.9% of the urban population lived in free royal cities, 16.1% in settled council cities, 3.0% in privileged cities and 54.0% in market towns. Comparing the number and proportion of the urban population to the total population, it can be established that the most urbanized counties were the southern Great Plain counties. Among the royal Hungarian counties, the urban population of the Partium counties (Zaránd, Közép-Szolnok, Kővár-vidék) and our smallest county (Torna) remained below 10%.
The values were also lower than 10% in two counties of Croatian-Slavonia and the Croatian Border Guard Region, while five counties in Transylvania, two Szeklerland and Saxon counties each, and the Fogaras region.