Tamási is a town in

Tolna County Tolna (, ; ) is an administrative county (Comitatus (Kingdom of Hungary), comitatus or vármegye) in present-day Hungary as it was in the former Kingdom of Hungary. It lies in central Hungary, on the west bank of the river Danube. It shares borde ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much 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 south, Croatia and ...

, and is located just 30 kilometers east of

Lake Balaton Lake Balaton () is a freshwater rift lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the List of largest lakes of Europe, largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the larges ...

. Tamási is named after St. Thomas and has a population of approximately 9,200 people. Tamási was founded during the

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

and primarily focused on agriculture. The town has a history of various conquerors including the Turks from 1525 to 1665 and the Austrians from 1848 to 1849. The town has many ruins and the town centre has a Catholic church that was built on the ruins of a temple built during the time of ancient Rome. The Soviet Army controlled the town from 1945 to 1989 until the Soviet

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

fell. Since the dissolution of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, Tamási and Hungary as a whole have been governed as a parliamentary democracy with free elections. Hungary is a member of both

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. The famous Estherházy family once owned the Gyulaj Forest wild animal preserve, which is one of the area's notable natural features for hunting. During the Communist period of 1945–1989, party officials from Budapest organized large hunting parties and held feasts after the hunt, with photos of these events visible in the host lodge. The preserve covers 7.8 hectares and is home to one of the world's largest populations of fallow deer, called "dám vad. Waterbirds such as ferruginous ducks, Nyroca n. nyroca, and herons (Egretta), as well as predatory birds including hawks (Accipiter sp.), bald eagles, and Heliaeetus leucocephalus, are observed in the nearby Pacsmag Lake area. Bird-watching camps are organized here, led by specialized ornithologists.

Notable current and former residents

* Andrea Osvárt, Hungarian actress * Ernie Konnyu, retired American Congressman and California State Assemblyman of San Jose, CA USA was born here in 1937.

Twin towns - sister cities

* Montigny-en-Gohelle *

Wurzen Wurzen () is a town in the district Leipzig (district), Leipzig Land (voting) and Muldental (number plates), in Saxony, Germany. It is situated next to the river Mulde, here crossed by two bridges, 25 km east of Leipzig, by rail N.E. of Leipzig L ...

* Isernhagen * Suchy Las *

Volgodonsk Volgodonsk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located in the east of the oblast on the west bank of the Tsimlyansk Reservoir. Population: 28,000 (1970). History Volgodonsk was founded in 1950 as ...

* Pyiterfolvo

References

External links

* in Hungarian, English and German
Street map

Tamasi 20 minute video
Populated places in Tolna County {{Tolna-geo-stub