Fejér county—the István Király Museum at Székesfehérvár

Abstract

Fejer county lies between Budapest and Lake Balaton; the county's chief town, Szekesfehervar, has played a prominent role in Hungarian history and, since the 1960s, has also been gaining in importance as an industrial centre. Dunaujvaros, the county's other principal town, developed in the 1950s in the vicinity of the steel works and was the first example of socialist town-planning in Hungary. In the northern part of the county, where lie the Bakony, Vertes and Velence hills, the villages populated by national minorities retain their special character and mining and vine-growing are practised. In the southern part of the county lies the agricultural plain of Mezőfőld, as well as Lake Velencei, which is visited regularly by more than 100,000 holiday-makers at the height of summer; here the extensive highway system bears witness to the importance of this area from the Roman period until the early Middle Ages. Late in the tenth century Szekesfehervar became the royal residence of the Hungarian kings, who were crowned and buried there, and the Diet even met there for a long period. After the Ottoman domination the town's political importance decreased, but up to the mid-nineteenth century Szekesfehervar remained an important centre of Hungarian cultural life.