Dorog

Dorog
—  Town  —
Dorog Location of Dorog in Hungary
Coordinates: 47°43′10″N 18°43′45″E / 47.71944°N 18.72917°E / 47.71944; 18.72917Coordinates: 47°43′10″N 18°43′45″E / 47.71944°N 18.72917°E / 47.71944; 18.72917
Country	Hungary
County	Komárom-Esztergom
Area
- Total	11.55 km2 (4.5 sq mi)
Population (2009)
- Total	12,262
- Density	1,061.6/km2 (2,749.6/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	2510
Area code(s)	33

Dorog (German: Drostdorf) is a small town in Komárom-Esztergom, Hungary. It lies 38 km (~23.5 miles) north-west from the center of Budapest.

History

Town hall

North of Dorog with the power plant

Housing estate

The valley between the Pilis and Gerecse mountains has been inhabited since the New Stone Age. A Roman military road westwards from Aquincum passed by the present-day town of Dorog, where Roman dwellings with floor heating have been found, along with conduits, graves and milestones. When Hungary's kings resided at Esztergom in the 11th and 12th centuries, Dorog was where the cooks of the castle lodged. Roads from all directions met here in the Middle Age, and the Capter of Esztergom had the right to levy custom duties. The name, which appears in from Durug, Drug and Durugd, is first mentioned in an extant document in 1181.

The medieval settlement, destroyed in the Ottoman invasion, remained uninhabited from 1542 until 1649. German settlers then arrived in three waves, followed by Hungarians again. Dorog in the 18th century became a centre of communications again. Regular 19th-century visitors to the posting inn on the Buda–Vienna road included philologist Ferenc Kazinczy, statesman István Széchenyi and magnate Ferenc Wesselényi. New houses and streets sprang up round the baroque Roman Catholic church built in 1767–1775.

The first written contact on mining coal at Dorog, dating from 1845, was drawn up between the Capter of Esztergom and the colliery managers Ferenc Wasshuber and József János Jülke. Thereafter many great engineers became involved in developing the Dorog mines, including Vilmos Zsigmondy, the geologist Miksa Hantken, and the mining engineers Henrik Drasche and Sándor Schmidt, who opened up and directed exploitation of richer and richer seams. Dorog at the turn of the century was a major mining centre, connected by rail (originally HÉV) with Budapest and by canal with the Danube. In 1906, Dorog's power plant was constructed (which was rebuilt in the 1980s with 120 m high chimney). In 1900 Dorog had 1966 inhabitants (1369 Germans, 477 Magyars, 55 Slovaks).

Budapest's factories and population needed more and more coal in interwar period, so Dorog developed rapidly. Several housing colony for the immigrant miners was built in the 1920s and 1930s. So were a large worker's hostel, a new Catholic church, a Reformed church in Transylvanian style (which was constructed by Transylvanian coalminers who moved there after the Treaty of Trianon), two new schools, a kindergarten, a modern hospital, a mine manager's club, mine manager's residences, a town hall, a World War I memorial and a recreation ground. Most of these were designed by the engineer Zoltán Gáthy.

Some 300 men of Dorog lost their lives in the Second World War. A few years after the war, a lot of Germans were expelled. During the socialist era, Dorog became a typical socialist city with prefabricated block of flats. The mines gradually closed, so the government planted several factories (Gedeon Richter company, Hungaroton record plant, a machine factory). Dorog became a city in 1984. The town's industrial park established in 1999, there are five plants of the Sanyo (a new section is under construction in 2010). Nowadays Dorog is developing rapidly, the unemployment rate is 4%.

• Source: Dorog (free publication, ISBN 963-03-3987-0)

Economy

There are several factories in Dorog, including:

• Sanyo Hungary Ltd. (solar cell and air conditioner manufacturing)
• Gedeon Richter Corp. (medicine)
• Colgate-Palmolive Magyarország Ltd. (cleaning supplies, soap, shampoo)
• Novoprint Corp. (printing complex)
• Dorog-Esztergom Hőerőmű Ltd. (power plant)

Population

Historical populations
Year	Pop.	±%
1850	540	—
1857	837	+55.0%
1870	1,161	+38.7%
1880	1,163	+0.2%
1890	1,363	+17.2%
1900	1,966	+44.2%
1910	1,949	−0.9%
1920	3,943	+102.3%
1930	5,863	+48.7%
1941	8,182	+39.6%
1949	8,855	+8.2%
1960	9,994	+12.9%
1970	10,744	+7.5%
1980	11,844	+10.2%
1990	12,798	+8.1%
1995	13,211	+3.2%
2001	12,609	−4.6%
2010	12,156	−3.6%

Ethnic groups (2001 census):

• Magyars — 95.3%
• Germans — 4.2%
• Other — 0.5%

Religions (2001 census):

• Roman Catholic — 57.4%
• Calvinist — 8.9%
• Lutheran — 0.8%
• Other Christian — 2%
• Atheist — 19.1%
• No answer, unknown — 11.8%

Traffic and transport

Roads 10, 111 and 117 and the Budapest–Esztergom suburban railway line (with Siemens Desiro trains), all cross the town. The main street was rebuilt in 2006. Commuter bus no. 800 (with Volvo 7700A buses) connects the town with Árpád híd metro station. It runs every 20 or 30 minutes on a typical weekday.

Notable people from Dorog

• Jenő Buzánszky
• Gyula Grosics

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Hungary

Twin towns — Sister cities

Dorog is twinned with:

• — Marienberg, Germany
• — Wendlingen, Germany
• — Žirany (Zsére), Slovakia

External links

• Dorog Online
• Dorog on map