Countries

Hungary

Budapest was formed in 1873 when hilly Buda and Óbuda, on the west bank of the Danube, merged with flat Pest on the east bank. Hungarian, the national language, is Uralic rather than Indo-European, a distant relative of Finnish and Estonian.

The long neo-Gothic facade and dome of the Hungarian Parliament rising above the Danube in Budapest, with a tour boat passing

The Hungarian Parliament, on the Danube

Photo: Vsatinet, CC0

Red, white and green horizontal bands. The tricolor became a symbol of the 1848 revolution against Habsburg rule; red is often read as strength, white as faithfulness and green as hope.

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