Counties of the Kingdom of Hungary

A county (Hungarian: vármegye or megye; for the various names, their origin and use see here) is the name of a type of administrative units in the Kingdom of Hungary and in Hungary from the 10th century until the present day.

This article deals with only the period before the Treaty of Trianon of 1920. For lists of the individual counties, see Administrative divisions of the Kingdom of Hungary. For counties of Hungary since 1950, see Counties of Hungary.

Royal counties (late 10th century - late 13th century)

History

The Hungarians settled in the Carpathian Basin in 895. The first counties were probably the counties situated in present-day northern Pannonia (Transdanubia) - they arose before 1000 or around 1000. The exact time of the creation of many other counties is disputed, many of them, however, arose not later than under the rule of Stephen I of Hungary. Initially there were also several small frontier counties (Latin: marchiae) established for military purposes only (e. g. comitatus of Bolondus), which however ceased to exist in the 14th century when royal counties were transformed to noble ones. Initially, there were also some small special castle districts, which ceased in the 13th century.