Nagykörút or Grand
Boulevard
A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway.
Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls.
In American usage, boulevards may ...
(sometimes ''Great Boulevard'', lit. "Big
Ring Road") is one of the most central and busiest parts of
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
, a major thoroughfare built by 1896,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
's
Millennium
A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...
. It forms a semicircle connecting two bridges of the
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...
,
Margaret Bridge on the north and
Petőfi Bridge
Petőfi híd or Petőfi Bridge (named after Sándor Petőfi, old name is ''Horthy Miklós Bridge'', named after governor Miklós Horthy) is a bridge in Budapest, connecting Pest and Buda across the Danube. It is the second southernmost public b ...
on the south. Usually the part inside and around this semicircle is counted as the city centre of Budapest (see
Belváros).
Meaning
Nagykörút is actually a colloquial name of its five parts which connect to each other: (from north to south) Szent István körút, Teréz körút, Erzsébet körút, József körút and Ferenc körút; these are the names the traveller will find on the map and the buildings. They are named after the districts of Budapest, which they pass through: VI. Terézváros, VII. Erzsébetváros, VIII. Józsefváros, IX. Ferencváros. The only exception is Szent István körút, which is the border of Lipótváros (northern half of District V.) and Újlipótváros (southern part of District XIII.). However, its original name was ''Lipót körút'', but the district had been renamed to Szentistvánváros in 1937, also the boulevard became Szent István. Most of citizens didn't support renaming, so the district got back its original name after World War II, but not the boulevard. Nagykörút is usually meant to include its
Pest part (i.e., the east side of the Danube), but it might be applied to its extension on the Buda side as well (in this latter sense, Margit körút will be its sixth part).
Location
It consists of a 35- to 40-metre-wide, about 4.5-kilometre-long road (not counting the bridge and the Buda side) with a tram line in the middle. It crosses a few major squares such as
Nyugati tér,
Oktogon and
Blaha Lujza tér, basic points of reference for the locals. The four major roads which cross it are
Váci út
Váci út (Váci Avenue, lit. ''Road to Vác'') is one of the widest and busiest avenues in Budapest, Hungary. It is about 12 kilometers long and has four to eight traffic lanes.
Location
It starts by the Grand Boulevard next to Nyugati ...
(north),
Andrássy Avenue (northeast; part of the
World Heritage
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...
),
Rákóczi út (east) and
Üllői út (southeast).
Features, notable spots
On the Nagykörút one can find (from north to south) the
Comedy Theatre
The Harold Pinter Theatre, known as the Comedy Theatre until 2011, (''Vígszínház'', 1896),
Western Railway Station (''Nyugati pályaudvar'', 1877, built by
Gustave Eiffel
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (born Bonickhausen dit Eiffel; ; ; 15 December 1832 – 27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway ...
's team), Radisson Blu Béke Hotel (1913), Corinthia Hotel Budapest (former Grand Hotel Royal, 1896), the
New York Café, today Boscolo Budapest Hotel (1894), and the
Art Nouveau palace of the
Museum of Applied Arts (1896). Among the modern landmarks are the
Skála Metró shopping centre (1984) and the
WestEnd City Center, a shopping mall (1999). Beside them, there are many small and bigger shops, stores on its either side, and mostly turn-of-the-century residential buildings above them.
Transport
Metros
The
four metro lines have five stations on Nagykörút, at the junctions of the above four roads: (from north to south)
Nyugati pályaudvar (
M3),
Oktogon (
M1),
Blaha Lujza tér (
M2),
Rákóczi tér (
M4) and
Corvin-negyed (M3 again).
4 and 6 trams
A characteristic vehicle of the Grand Boulevard is the tram no. 4 and 6, reaching
Buda both in north (
Széll Kálmán tér) and south Újbuda-központ (line 4) and
Móricz Zsigmond körtér (line 6). The line dates back to 1887 and it has since extended to 8.5 km in length and 21 stations to become the busiest tram line of Europe, carrying 200,000 travellers a day. (The routes of tram lines 4 and 6 differ only in their last two stops in the south.)
Its trams (no. 4 and 6), a unique type in Budapest, have been replaced by low-floor
Siemens Combino Supra vehicles, the longest in Europe (54 m), after July 1, 2006. Tram stations were elevated and in places widened and modernized, ramps added, the electric cables renovated and some rail sections replaced during the reconstruction, which cost altogether 3.4 billion
forint
The forint (sign Ft; code HUF) is the currency of Hungary. It was formerly divided into 100 fillér, but fillér coins are no longer in circulation. The introduction of the forint on 1 August 1946 was a crucial step in the post-World War II stab ...
s.
Further ring roads in Budapest
There are three further ring roads in Budapest:
* the
Small Boulevard (''Kiskörút''), with the length of about 1.5 km, inside the semicircle of Nagykörút (including Károly körút, Múzeum körút and Vámház körút),
* the
Hungária körgyűrű, an even bigger ring road outside Nagykörút (approx. 13 km), which is not always thought of as a single entity (it includes Róbert Károly körút, Hungária körút and Könyves Kálmán körút).
* the
M0 motorway, which encircles the three-quarters of the metropolitan area, connecting motorways M1, M7, M6, M5, M4 and M3.
External links
The Budapest Tourism Office on the Grand Boulevard(stored by the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
)
Szent István körút(a part of the Grand Boulevard)
{{Budapest
Boulevards in Budapest
Urban planning in Hungary