Budapest -gem of a city straddling the Danube River, with the Buda Hills to the west and the Great Plain to the east

Budapest is the capital and the largest city of Hungary, and one of the largest cities in the European Union. It is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre, sometimes described as the primate city of Hungary.

The history of Budapest began with Aquincum, originally a Celtic settlement that became the Roman capital of Lower Pannonia Hungarians arrived in the territory in the 9th century. Their first settlement was pillaged by the Mongols in 1241–42.The re-established town became one of the centres of Renaissance humanist culture by the 15th century

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