Demographics of Budapest
The population of Budapest was 1,735,041 on 1 January 2013. According to the 2011 census, the Budapest metropolitan area was home to 2,530,167 people and the Budapest commuter area had 3.3 million inhabitants. The Hungarian capital is the largest in the Pannonian Basin and the Largest cities of the [European Union by population within city limits|ninth largest] in the European Union. Budapest is also the primate city of Hungary and some neighbouring territories.
Population growth
The Capital city of Budapest was established on 17 November 1873 with the unification of three separate towns, named Buda, Óbuda and Pest. In 1720 Buda and Óbuda had 9,600 residents, while Pest was a small town with only 2,600 inhabitants. In the 18th and 19th century Pest became the natural commercial, transportation, industrial and cultural center of Hungary, Buda and Óbuda remained small towns. The population of Pest reached 50,000 in the 1820s, 100,000 in the 1840s and 200,000 in the 1860s. At the time of the unification Buda and Óbuda had 69,543 inhabitants, Pest was home to 227,294 people. The first modern Hungarian census was held in 1869–70, when the Hungarian Central Statistical Office enumerated 302,085 people at the present-territory of Budapest. Between the unification and the World War I Greater Budapest quadrupled its population, got a new global city upon the Danube. At that time Budapest was one of the fastest-growing cities in Europe, triggered by industrialisation and high natural growth rate and fertility rate|fertility] of rural ethnic Hungarians. Internal migration peaked in the 1960s with near 250,000 people in correlate to Post–World [War II baby boom|post World War II baby boom] and forced collectivization. The city became extremely overcrowded, the central government also perceived the problem and limited getting apartment in 1965, preventing overcrowding, housing shortage and the collapse of public works. This restriction raised a strong wave of suburbanization, which peaked after End of [Communism in Hungary (1989)|fall of the Communism], the number of inhabitants dropped to 1.7 million, while garden housing development is still decisive in the suburbs. Reurbanisation and gentrification getting on since the mid-2000s.| Year | 1870 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1941 | 1949 |
| Budapest Capital | 270,476 | 355,682 | 486,671 | 703,448 | 880,371 | 928,996 | 1,006,184 | 1,164,963 | 1,057,912 |
| Suburbs | 31,609 | 47,024 | 73,408 | 157,986 | 230,082 | 303,030 | 436,685 | 547,828 | 532,404 |
| Greater Budapest | 302,085 | 402,706 | 560,079 | 816,434 | 1,110,453 | 1,232,026 | 1,442,869 | 1,712,791 | 1,590,316 |
| Year | 1949 | 1960 | 1970 | 1980 | 1990 | 2001 | 2005 | 2011 | 2022 |
| Budapest | 1,590,316 | 1,804,606 | 2,001,083 | 2,059,347 | 2,016,774 | 1,777,921 | 1,695,814 | 1,729,040 | 1,685,342 |
| Suburbs | 307,566 | 379,649 | 479,242 | 567,355 | 562,666 | 676,229 | 726,017 | 801,127 | n/a |
| Budapest metropolitan area | 1,897,882 | 2,184,255 | 2,480,325 | 2,626,702 | 2,579,440 | 2,454,150 | 2,421,831 | 2,530,167 | n/a |
Ethnicity
After the conquest of the Carpathian Basin one of the main Hungarian (Magyar) tribes, named Megyer, settled in the present-territory of Budapest, more exactly on both banks of the river Danube in Békásmegyer and Káposztásmegyer, now high-rise housing estates of the city. Endonym „Magyar” is originated from the tribe name „Megyer”. Following the Mongol Invasion of 1241, German colonists settled in the cities of Buda and Pest, forming the majority of the population and dominating the main urban institutions.In Buda, the majority of the citizens were of German and local origin. The proportion of Germans and Hungarians, has shifted significantly over time from a German majority towards a Hungarian majority. In the 14th century, the German population still inhabited the entire area of the city, but by the 15th century, they were limited to the area of their parish. At first, the Germans were the exclusive holders of political and economic power, and they made up the majority of the population. However, from the last quarter of the 14th century, the Germans and Hungarians engaged in power struggles, which were resolved with the peace agreement of 1439 and a power-sharing arrangement based on parity that continued until the end of the Middle Ages. Behind this change was a demographic and social reorganization, which involved the growth of the Hungarian citizens in numbers, as well as an increase in its economic and political power. In the late Middle Ages, the two leading nations of the city were geographically separated from each other, with their parishes being divided and power over the city shared.
The native population fled from the area during the Ottoman wartimes, in the 17th century Buda was home to mainly Turkish and South Slavic population. Many of them died in the Battle of Buda in 1686, survivors were expelled. In the late-17th and the early-18th century Buda, Óbuda and Pest was settled by Germans from Southern Germany and the Rhineland. The proportion of Hungarians rose gradually since the late 18th century, overtook Germans around the unification in 1873. Between 1787 and 1910 number of ethnic Hungarians rose from 2.3 million to 10.2 million due to population explosion, generated by the resettlement of the Great Hungarian Plain and Lower Hungary by Hungarian settlers from the relatively overpopulated northern and western counties of the Kingdom of Hungary. Hungarian villages and market towns become overcrowded, Budapest has become the main destination of the rural surplus population due to industrialisation. Hungarians increased their number from 200,000 to 2,000,000 in Budapest between 1880 and 1980. By the end of the World War II, Budapest can be described as an ethnically homogeneous city.
According to the 2011 census the total population of Budapest was 1,729,040, of whom there were 1,397,851 Hungarians, 19,530 Romani, 18,278 Germans, 6,189 Romanians, 4,692 Chinese and 2,581 Slovaks. 301,943 people did not declare their ethnicity. Excluding these people Hungarians made up 98.0% of the total population. In Hungary people can declare more than one ethnicity, so the sum of ethnicities is higher than the total population.
Languages
First language
According to the 2011 census, 1,712,153 people speak Hungarian, of whom 1,692,815 people speak it as a first language, while 19,338 people speak it as a second language.| Language | 1715 | 1737 | 1750 | 1851 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1941 | 2001 | 2011 | 2022 |
| Hungarian | 19.4% | 22.5% | 22.2% | 36.6% | 56.7% | 67.1% | 79.6% | 85.9% | 90.2% | 94.3% | 97% | 98.7% | 98.2% | 96.5% |
| German | 55.6% | 57.8% | 55.2% | 56.4% | 34.3% | 23.7% | 14% | 9% | 6.5% | 3.8% | 1.9% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.3% |
| Slovak | 2.2% | 5.6% | 6.5% | 5% | 6.1% | 5.6% | 3.4% | 2.3% | 1.5% | 0.7% | 0.3% | 0.1% | - | - |
| Other | 22.8% | 14.1% | 16.1% | 2% | 2.9% | 3.6% | 3% | 2.8% | 1.8% | 1.2% | 0.8% | 0.6% | 1.6% | 3% |
Second language
| Language | 2001 | 2011 | 2022 |
| English | 22.2% | 31% | 44% |
| German | 16.3% | 15.4% | 16.2% |
| Russian | 4% | 3.2% | 3.9% |
| French | 3.3% | 3.3% | 3.9% |
| Spanish | 0.9% | 1.5% | 2.2% |
| Romanian | 1.6% | 2.2% | 2.2% |
| Italian | 1.6% | 2% | 2.2% |
| Ukrainian | 0.2% | 0.4% | 1.2% |
| Chinese | 0.3% | 0.5% | 1% |
Religion
Budapest is the home to one of the most populous Christian communities in Central Europe, numbering 698,521 people in 2011. The Hungarian capital is also the home of the largest Calvinist community on Earth. Hungarian Calvinists increased their number from 13,008 to 224,169 between 1870 and 2001 due to internal migration, triggered by higher fertility than other denominations. However the 2011 census showed decline in all religious groups - the number of Calvinists fell to 146,756 people. Hungarian Roman Catholics remained the most populous separate group with 501,117 people. Moreover, the most recent census was the first one in the city's history when the share of people attached to religious groups was below 50%.Judaism also was a significant religion in Budapest, numbered 215,512 people in 1920, but they dropped to a smaller group due to the Holocaust, secularization, and atheism, the huge ratio to convert to Christianity, and assimilation and intermarriages with non-Jews after 1945, and the immigration to Israel. Religious Hungarian Jews has had the lowest fertility in Hungary, natural decline began in the 1920s. The community is still very aged with 52.6 years median age, about ten years higher than Catholics and Calvinists.
| Denomination | 1870 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1941 | 1949 | 2001 | 2011 | 2022 |
| Roman Catholic | 72.3% | 69.4% | 64.7% | 60.7% | 59.8% | 59.1% | 60.7% | 63.1% | 69.8% | 53.9% | 43.9% | 22.6% |
| Calvinist | 4.8% | 6.1% | 7.4% | 8.9% | 9.9% | 10.9% | 12.1% | 13.6% | 15.5% | 14.8% | 12.9% | 7.5% |
| Lutheran | 5.3% | 5.5% | 5.6% | 5.3% | 4.9% | 4.8% | 5% | 5.3% | 5.4% | 3.1% | 2.6% | 1.6% |
| Jewish | 16.6% | 19.7% | 21% | 23.6% | 23.1% | 23.2% | 20.3% | 15.8% | 6.4% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.3% |
| Others | 1% | 1.3% | 1.3% | 1.5% | 2.2% | 2% | 1.9% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 4.6% | 5.3% | 4.3% |
| Without religion | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 23.0% | 35.1% | 63.7% |
Migration and citizenship
According to the 2001 census, majority of the population of Budapest is originated from the Hungarian countryside. 230,307 people are from the Great Plain, 170,406 from Transdanubia, 93,665 from Pest county and 90,228 people are from Northern Hungary. Budapest is the hometown to 822,663 people, while 87,746 people was born outside the present-day borders of Hungary.In 2001, 1,736,521 Hungarian citizens, 6,507 Hungarian and others and 34,824 foreigners lived in Budapest. Ethnic Hungarians made up the majority of non-Hungarian citizens also, primary from Romania, former Yugoslavia and Ukraine. They have come to Hungary due to better possibility of employment.
According to the 2011 census, 1,600,585 people were born in Hungary, 126,036 people outside Hungary while the birthplace of 2,419 people was unknown.
According to the 2022 census, 94.2% of Budapest residents were Hungarian citizens, 1.7% were other EU citizens, and 4.1% were citizens of other countries.
Politics and demography
According to the 2010 and 2014 local and national elections, the largest party of Budapest is the ruling national conservative alliance of Hungary, Fidesz-Christian [Democratic People's Party (Hungary)|KDNP], headed by prime minister Viktor Orbán. Fidesz is followed by the centre-left Unity, the far right Jobbik and the green liberal LMP.The spatial distribution of political parties is very various. Fidesz is outstanding in the conservative middle and middle class">Middle class">middle class characteristic Buda and in the garden estates of Pest. Unity and Jobbik are relatively strong in the working class and lower middle class characteristic neighbourhoods while LMP is remarkable in the partly run-down, inner blocks.
In the Parliamentary elections of 2014, national conservative Fidesz-KDNP won 10 and the centre-left Unity won 8 from the 18 electoral districts of Budapest.