Villages on the Edge of Extinction - the Hungarian Situation

Abstract

One of the most interesting settlement types in Hungary is the small village, that is the village with less than 500 inhabitants. One third of the Hungarian settlements are small villages, but they include only 3% of the total population. Their disadvantageous situation is well-known because of the lack of public services, low-quality infrastructure, poor traffic connections, and old or deprived and declining population. The smaller a village is the worse its situation becomes. Because of these unfavourable processes, some of the Hungarian villages are today at the edge of extinction. However, some of these villages have been refurbished in the last two decades with new functions (tourism, suburbanization, eco-village). Therefore, we argue that while some villages are in a very disadvantaged position other villages are in much better situation today. First we summarize those factors, which determine the past and present situation and development of small villages in Hungary. Than we try to classify the Hungarian extremely small villages by population changing trends and analysing the geographic location of these groups to find the different ways of development of small villages nowadays. The future of the extremely small villages is not pre-determined; rather their future evolution will depend on their location, functions, local elite, ethnicity, etc.