Demographics of Budapest

Ice skaters in front of Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest

According to the official gazetteer of 2011, there are 1,733,685 people and 895,400 households (dwellings) in Budapest Capital, Hungary.^[1] In 2011 the official Budapest metropolitan area has 2,551,247 inhabitants and in the official Budapest commuter area (established by the government in 2005^[2]) lived 3,271,110 people (2009)^[3], so the Hungarian metropolis is the largest metropolitan area in Central-East Europe and the primate city of the Pannonian Basin (former Greater Hungary).^[4]

Population of Budapest in 2001

Nationalities

^[5]

Population change of Budapest (1780-2008)

Population pyramid of Budapest (2005)

Population change of Budapest metropolitan area (1870-2008, red: Budapest metropolitan area, green: Budapest Capital, blue: Budapest suburban area)

Nationalities	Size	Note
Magyars	1,631,043 (91.2%)	-
Germans	18,097 (1%)	Danube Swabians
Roma	14,019 (0.8%)	Generality of them are Hungarian speaking Romungro[6]
Slovaks	4,929 (0.3%)	-
Greeks	3,410	-
Romanians	2,637	-
Chinese	2,289	-
Ukrainians	2,055	-
Poles	2,044	-
Others	4,327	-
No answer, unknown	93,071	-

Population by spoken language

^[7][8]

Language	Size	Note
Hungarian	1,766,733 (99.4%)	Mother tongue
English	393,642 (22.1%)	Foreign language
German	286,351 (16.1%)	Foreign and minority language[9]
Russian	68,960 (3.9%)	Foreign language
French	57,648 (3.2%)	Foreign language

Religions

^[10]

Denomination	Size	Note
Roman Catholic	808,460 (45.5%)	Mainly Magyar and German descendants
Calvinist	224,169 (12.6%)	Only Magyar descendants
Lutheran	46,449 (2.6%)	Magyar, German and Slovak descendants
Greek Catholic	28,901 (1.6%)	Magyar descendants
Jewish	9,468 (0.5%)	Generality of them are Magyarized Neolog Jews
Other Christian	20,523	-
Others	5,971	-
Atheist	374,209 (21%)	-
No answer, unknown	286,584	-

Historical population

Population by spoken language (1715-2001)

^{[11] [12][13]}

Language	1715	1737	1750	1851	1880	1890	1900	1910	1920	1930	1941	2001
Hungarian	19,4%	22,5%	22,2%	36,6%	56,7%	67,1%	79,6%	85,9%	90,2%	94,3%	97%	99.4%
German	55,6%	57,8%	55,2%	56,4%	34,3%	23,7%	14%	9%	6,5%	3,8%	1,9%	-
Slovak	2,2%	5,6%	6,5%	5%	6,1%	5,6%	3,4%	2,3%	1,5%	0,7%	0,3%	-
Other	22,8%[14]	14,1%	16,1%	2%	2,9%	3,6%	3%	2,8%	1,8%	1,2%	0,8%	0.6%

Factory workers by nationality in Budapest (1877)

^[15]

Nationality	Share
Magyars	46.6%
Foreigners[16]	25%
Slovaks	22.2%
Serbs	0.9%
Romanians	0.3%
Others	5%

Population by denominations (1870-1949)

^{[17] [18]}

Denomination	1870	1880	1890	1900	1910	1920	1930	1941	1949
Roman Catholic	72,3%	67,4%	64,7%	60,7%	59,8%	59,1%	60,7%	63,7%	71,3%
Calvinist	4,8%	6,1%	7,4%	8,9%	9,9%	10,9%	12,1%	13,6%	15,5%
Lutheran	5,3%	5,5%	5,6%	5,3%	5%	4,8%	5%	5,3%	5,4%
Jewish	16,6%	19,7%	21%	23,6%	23,1%	23,2%	20,3%	15,8%	6,4%
Others	1%	1,3%	1,3%	1,5%	2,2%	2%	1,9%	1,6%	1,4%

Historical population data

Buda and Pest

^[19]

Year	Buda	Pest	Budapest
1720	9 600	2 600	12 200
1787	24 873	22 417	47 290
1799	24 306	29 870	54 176
1813	34 066	36 153	70 219
1848	40 500	110 516	151 016
1851	50 127	127 935	178 062
1869	70 000	200 476	280 349
1873	69 573	227 294	296 867

Budapest Capital

Year Population 1870 302,085 1880 402,706 1890 560,079 1900 861,434 1910 1,110,453 1920 1,232,026 1930 1,442,869 1941 1,712,791

Year Population 1949 1,590,316 1960 1,804,606 1970 2,001,083 1980 2,059,226 1990 2,016,681 2001 1,777,921 2005 1,695,814 2011 1,733,685

Budapest metropolitan area

Year Population 1870 418,490 1880 530,556 1890 703,004 1900 1,027,626 1910 1,315,183 1920 1,459,449 1930 1,712,596 1941 2,025,402

Year Population 1949 1,897,882 1960 2,184,255 1970 2,480,325 1980 2,626,702 1990 2,579,440 2001 2,454,150 2005 2,421,831 2011 2,551,247

Budapest suburban area

Year Population 1870 116,404 1880 127,850 1890 142,925 1900 166,192 1910 204,730 1920 227,423 1930 269,727 1941 312,611

Year Population 1949 307,566 1960 379,649 1970 479,242 1980 567,476 1990 562,759 2001 676,229 2005 724,488 2011 817,562

See also

• Demographics of Hungary
• Budapest
• Greater Budapest
• Budapest metropolitan area
• Magyarization
• Neolog Judaism
• Judapest

References

1. ^ Official gazetteer of Hungary, 2011
2. ^ History of the Budapest Commuter Association (English)
3. ^ Settlements of the Budapest Commuter Area
4. ^ Tuna Tasan-Kok: Budapest, Istanbul and Warsaw: Institutional and spatial change, p.41 "...other Hungarian cities remained predominantly agricultural. Budapest continued to grow as the primate city."
5. ^ 2001 census (English)
6. ^ Romungro means "Hungarian Roma"
7. ^ Hungarian census 2001 (English)
8. ^ Hungarian census 2001 (English)
9. ^ German is historically spoken is Budapest, because until the 1870s Budapest was a German-language city.
10. ^ 2001 census (English)
11. ^ Budapest statisztikai évkönyve 1943 (Statistical Yearbook of Budapest, 1943), p. 33, Hungarian Central Statistical Office
12. ^ A Pallas nagy lexikona
13. ^ Detailed population statistics of Budapest (2001 census)
14. ^ Mainly Serbo-Croatian
15. ^ Ethnic composition, assimilation in Hungary
16. ^ Mainly Germans and Czechs from Austria and the Czech lands
17. ^ Budapest székes főváros Statisztikai és Közigazgatási Évkönyve 1921-1924 (Statistical Yearbook of Budapest, 1921-1924), p. 38, Hungarian Central Statistical Office
18. ^ Budapest statisztikai évkönyve 1943 (Statistical Yearbook of Budapest, 1943), p. 32, Hungarian Central Statistical Office
19. ^ Budapest statisztikai évkönyve 1944-1946 (Statistical Yearbook of Budapest, 1944-1946), p. 12, Hungarian Central Statistical Office