Subscribe to our social channels to get the latest news about Hungary!
7 things in which Hungarians are among the best
Change language:
We Hungarians are at the forefront of many things. Every foreigner remembers something about Hungary: special dishes, fascinating landscapes, interesting language, beautiful women, Ferenc Puskás, the Rubik’s Cube, Albert Szent-Györgyi, or János Neumann. However, there are a lot of other things in which Hungarians are among the best. In our list below, we have compiled these more or less obvious areas.
1. Mineral and thermal water
Hungary’s geographical location is advantageous in many ways. These include mineral waters and healing thermal waters from springs and deep wells. In terms of surface thermal water resources, only Iceland is ahead of us. Budapest is the capital with the most thermal and medicinal water springs in the world. There are 118 thermal wells in Budapest, and there are 224 different mineral waters in Hungary, of which 207 are medicinal waters. Hévíz has the second-largest thermal lake in the world. This feature is good for Hungarian tourism. Approximately 23-24 million visitors arrive for this purpose every year.
2. Olympic medals
Hungary does not have the most Olympic gold medals or total medals, and we only recently celebrated our first victory at the Winter Olympics. However, if we examine the Summer Olympic gold medals and total medals obtained in proportion to the population, we can see that Hungary is among the best on the list. During the 26 Summer Olympic Games, Hungarian athletes won nearly 500, or more precisely, 491 medals, and 175 of the medals were awarded on the top step of the podium.
3. Water sports
From these medals, the athletes’ successes, as well as the geographical features of Hungary, we can deduce that many of these medals were won in water sports. In terms of canoeing, Hungary has 80 Olympic medals, which is the most, while 25 gold medals is the third after Germany and the Soviet Union.
The Hungarian water polo team also contributed to the success. The men’s national team won 9 times at the Olympics, succeeding 3 times in a row between 2000 and 2008. They can also be proud of a number of World Cup, World Championship, European Cup, and European Championship victories.
