While many associate the phrase Greater Budapest with the agglomeration of the capital, it is in fact used for Budapest in its present, extended size, as it was created by a law in 1949, which came into force on 1 January 1950. By attaching seven towns and 16 villages to the former Budapest, its area enlarged from 207 km² to 525 km² (154%), the number of its inhabitants increased from 1.05 million to 1.6 million (52%), and the number of the districts augmented from 14 to 22 (57%), thus becoming the seventh metropolis of Europe in its time. The only difference between the 1950s Greater Budapest and today’s Budapest is that Soroksár, a part of District 20, voted for its independence in 1992, and in 1994 it became a separate District 23. The total area of Budapest remained the same. In 1950 Inner Budapest (former Little Budapest) had 1.05 million inhabitants and the annexed suburbs 0.55 million. Now Inner Budapest has only 0.95 million inhabitants while the former suburbs’ population increased to 0.75 million. In the 1960s neighbouring villages became the new suburbs (second suburban belt) with rapidly increasing population (from 1950 to 2009 these former villages’ and small towns’ population increased from 300,000 to nearly 800,000), forming what is now known as Budapest Metropolitan Area. The real periphery of the capital encompasses 193 settlements around the city. As these settlements generate huge commuter traffic the area is often called Budapest
Commuter Area.
