What did medieval Hungary look like? – new free downloadable map shows

The Eötvös Lóránd Research Network of the Eötvös Lóránd University’s Research Centre for Humanities has created the digital atlas of Hungary of the late medieval, MTI writes. Based on the research carried out within the framework of the Árpád-ház Program, the experts renewed and reiterated Pál Engel’s database on the historical medieval settlements of Hungary, which was published on CD-ROM 20 years ago.

ELKH reports that thanks to the developments of technology, the data has become available to anyone on the Internet. The database was originally created 20 years ago with the support of Országos Tudományos Kutatási Alapprogramok or OTKA (loosely translated to Basic National Scientific Research Programs) and the Akadémiai Kutatási Pályázatok (Academic Research Applications) at the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences between 1993 and 2001.

The digital atlas presents a detailed map of the Kingdom of Hungary in the late Middle Ages, a few decades around the 1500s.

According to 24, it contains all the settlements – cities, towns, market towns, villages, rural living areas, castles and monasteries, which add up to more than 23,000 in total – that existed at that time and whose location could be at least approximately determined by scientific methods or historical evidence. The major bodies of water are also present on the atlas, and the county boundaries of the age are also marked. In addition to the major waters and county borders, however, the atlas also indicates the boundaries of significant royal, ecclesiastical, and secular properties of land (as of 1498).

A descriptive database is also connected to the map, which contains the most important data about the settlements marked on the atlas.