10,135,400 (1998).

108.9 per sq km.

Budapest

1,861,383 (1998).

Hungary is situated in Central Europe, sharing borders to the north with the Slovak Republic, to the northeast with Ukraine, to the east with Romania, to the south with Croatia and Serbia and to the west with Austria and Slovenia. There are several ranges of hills, chiefly in the north and west. The Great Plain (Nagyalföld) stretches east from the Danube to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the CIS, to the mountains of Transylvania in Romania, and south to the Fruska Gora range in Croatia. Lake Balaton is the largest unbroken stretch of inland water in Central Europe.

Republic. Head of State: President Árpad Göncz since 1990. Head of Government: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán since 1998.

Hungarian (Magyar) is the official language. German and English are widely spoken. Some French is also spoken, mainly in western Hungary.

65% Roman Catholic, 20% Calvinist. Eastern Orthodox and Jewish minorities. There is no official national religion.

GMT + 1 (GMT + 2 from last Sunday in March to Saturday before last Sunday in October).

230 volts AC, 50Hz. European-style 2-pin plugs are used.