Mátrafüred is a village located in an outer part of

Gyöngyös Gyöngyös (; german: Gengeß) is a town in Heves county in Hungary, east of Budapest. Situated at the foot of the Sár-hegy and Mátra mountains, it is the home of numerous food production plants, including milk production and sausage factories ...

Heves county Heves county ( hu, Heves megye, ) lies in northern Hungary, between the right bank of the river Tisza and the Mátra and Bükk mountains. It shares borders with the Hungarian counties Pest, Nógrád, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén and Jász-Nagykun-S ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

in the southern part of the

Mátra The Mátra ( sk, Matra) is a mountain range in northern Hungary, between the towns Gyöngyös and Eger. The country's highest peak, Kékestető (1014 m), belongs to this mountain range. The Mátra is part of the North Hungarian Mountains an ...

mountain range. It can be found by travelling on the road 24, which crosses the commune. It has a population of 981.

History

A fortress was built at Mátrafüred around at 1000 and used to be the most powerful fortress in Mátra, It was destroyed in the

Mongol Invasion The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating history's largest contiguous empire: the Mongol Empire ( 1206- 1368), which by 1300 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastati ...

and was rebuilt in the 14th century but was destroyed by

Hussite The Hussites ( cs, Husité or ''Kališníci''; "Chalice People") were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation. The Hussit ...

forces around 1450. The village itself (then called ''Bene'') was first mentioned in 1301. The village church was built in 1767, and a stone cross was erected in 1833. There were baize manufactures near Bene, but they could not compete with larger factories, so Bene was depopulated in the second half of the 19th century. Around 1887 look-out towers and tourist houses were built nearby. People started to move to the town, which was renamed Mátrafüred in 1893. In the 1920s several villas were built. Railways near Mátrafüred were restored and new tracks were built. In 1976, a large and comfortable hotel was opened. In a referendum held in 2005, the people of Mátrafüred voted to split from

, but it didn't happen yet.

Tourism

It is the centre of tourism in Mátra. There are several hotels and bungalows. Sights include: *Sástó - A lake *Kozmáry look-out tower *Palóc Folk Art Museum *Baroque church {{DEFAULTSORT:Matrafured Populated places in Heves County