Budapest is the capital city of Hungary. With more than 1.7 million inhabitants in 2008, it serves as the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation center and is considered an important hub in Central Europe.
The first settlement here, Aquincum was a military camp built by Romans before 106AD. They constructed roads, amphitheaters, baths and houses with heated floors in this fortified military camp. Hungarians arrived in the territory in the 9th century. Their first settlement was destroyed by the Mongols in 1241-42. The re-established town containing a huge royal castle located on Buda hill became one of the centers of Renaissance humanist culture in the 15th century. The library of King Matthias contained hundreds of important medieval books, the so called Corvinas.
Buda was occupied by the Turks in 1541 and it remained an Ottoman city for around 150 years. Development of the region entered a new age of prosperity in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Budapest became a global city after the 1873 unification. Three different cities: Buda located around Buda hill, Pest located on the other side of the Danube and Óbuda built on the ruins of Aquincum were unified and named as Budapest.
It also became the second capital of Austro-Hungarian Empire which was dissolved in 1918. Budapest was devastated several times in the 20th century, Buda castle was a stronghold of Germans during WW II and Russians also destroyed the town during the Revolution of 1956.
The city was reborn in the past 50 years and now it offers monuments from 2000 years of History to more than 20 million visitors each year. Budapest is considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, its World Heritage Sites include Buda castle with both banks of Dunaube, Andrássy Avenue with the Millennium Underground Railway, the first on the European continent.
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