Hortobagy National Park

Hortobagy is the heart of the puszta, the great grassland plain of eastern Hungary, a UNESCO cultural landscape shaped by thousands of years of grazing. It is a place of vast, flat horizons, grey longhorn cattle, racka sheep with corkscrew horns, and the csikos, the traditional Hungarian horsemen who still herd and perform their daring riding tricks.

Background

Hortobágy covers 800 km2 of the Great Plain and in 1973 became Hungary's first national park. It is the largest protected area in Hungary, and no semi-natural grassland in Europe is larger. The alkaline steppe was long thought to date from medieval forest clearance, but alkalinization is now estimated to have begun ten thousand years ago, when the Tisza found a path across the plain and separated many streams from where they rose in the Northern Mountains. Wild horses and other grazers in the Ice Age, then domestic herds, finished the work. It became a Ramsar site on 11 April 1979. The park records 342 bird species, and around 25 Przewalski's horses live here.

Source: Wikipedia, "Hortobágy National Park"

Highlights

• The puszta horsemen - the csikos performing traditional riding displays.
• The traditional herds - the grey cattle, corkscrew-horned racka sheep and water buffalo.
• The Nine-Arch Bridge - the long stone bridge, the symbol of the plain.
• The crane migration - the tens of thousands of cranes that gather in autumn.

When to go

Spring to autumn for the herds, horsemen and open plain; autumn brings the spectacular gathering of migrating cranes. Summer heat shimmers over the flat land.

Before you go

It is a flat, subtle landscape whose appeal is the herds, horsemen, birds and sense of space rather than dramatic scenery. The horsemen displays are staged for visitors. It is far east, a real journey from Budapest.

Nearby

Debrecen, Hungary's second city, is close; the Great Plain spreads around.

Key facts