Hajdúszoboszló () is a town in Hajdú-Bihar county,

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 ...

, southwest of county seat

Debrecen Debrecen ( , is Hungary's second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the largest Hungarian city in the 18th century and ...

. It is the third largest town in Hajdú-Bihar county.

Etymology

The name comes from a Slavic personal name

Soběslav Soběslav (; german: Sobieslau) is a town in Tábor District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 6,800 inhabitants. The historical town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone. Admi ...

(see e.g.

, Soběslavice, Sebeslavce).

Location

The town is located in the northeastern part of the

Great Hungarian Plain The Great Hungarian Plain (also known as Alföld or Great Alföld, hu, Alföld or ) is a plain occupying the majority of the modern territory of Hungary. It is the largest part of the wider Pannonian Plain. (However, the Great Hungarian plain ...

. Three regions meet near the town: the Hajdúhát ridge to the north-north-east, the

Hortobágy National Park Hortobágy () is an 800 km2 national park in eastern Hungary, rich with folklore and cultural history. The park, a part of the Alföld (Great Plain), was designated as a national park in 1973 (the first in Hungary), and elected among the W ...

(Puszta) to the north-north-west, and the Great Sárrét and Berettyó region to the south. Szoboszló lies at an altitude of scarcely above sea level and slopes slightly towards Hortobágy. This is a landscape "where earth and sky meet", but not a monotonous plain, even for travellers accustomed to romantic mountains, since here and there the landscape is enlivened by the backwaters of the Tisza River with patches of reed, thousands of wild fowl, and inviting groves. The surroundings are the renowned puszta, the "glorious plain".

History

From historical data and archaeological finds, this part of the Great Plain was inhabited as far back as the

Great Migrations ''Great Migrations'' is a seven-episode nature documentary television miniseries that airs on the National Geographic Channel, featuring the great migrations of animals around the globe. The seven-part show is the largest programming event in t ...

. Because of the natural resources and the convergence of trade routes, Huns, Vandals, Gepids, Goths, and Avars frequently alternated with one another in this area. Early in the reign of the Árpád Dynasty, the area was inhabited by populous communities. The first written mention of Szoboszló dates back to 1075, when King Géza I donated half of Szoboszló's royal duty taxes to the new abbacy to be established at Garamszentbenedek. With an ornate deed of gift dated 2 September 1606,

István Bocskai Stephen Bocskai or Bocskay ( hu, Bocskai István; 1 January 155729 December 1606) was Prince of Transylvania and Hungary from 1605 to 1606. He was born to a Hungarian noble family. His father's estates were located in the eastern regions of th ...

, Prince of

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

, provided

smallholding A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...

s for 700 Hajdú (Heyduck) cavalrymen at the site of Szoboszló, which had been destroyed by the Crimean Tartars. Henceforth the prefix ''Hajdú'' was attached to the settlement's previous Slavonic name, though the compound form - Hajdúszoboszló - only became widespread in the 19th century. The town led the customary, toilsome life of the small agricultural, stock-breeding towns of Hajdú County until well into the 20th century. An upswing began on 26 October 1925 with the discovery of the thermal spring in the course of drilling for oil and gas. The medicinal water, tinged with natural iodine, led to the town's development into a resort spa, while agriculture retained its significant role even after the discovery of the gas field.

Populatio

*1870 - 12,269 *1920 - 17,722 *1970 - 22,000 *2002 - 23,874 *2005 - 23,827 *2009 - 23,295 *2019 - 24,185 Hajdúszoboszlólégi1

Spa complex

The water park includes water slides, an olympic-sized swimming pool, and a wave pool, while the spa features graded thermal pools, including a

tepidarium The tepidarium was the warm (''tepidus'') bathroom of the Roman baths heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system. The speciality of a tepidarium is the pleasant feeling of constant radiant heat which directly affects the human body from t ...

and

jacuzzi Jacuzzi Brands LLC (; ), through its subsidiaries, is a global manufacturer and distributor of branded baths, hot tubs, pools, saunas and, formerly, aircraft. Founded in 1915 by the Italian family of the same name, Jacuzzi is a federally regist ...

-type hot baths. Official website: http://hajduszoboszlo.hu/en/

Twin towns – sister cities

Hajdúszoboszló is twinned with: *

Bad Dürrheim Bad Dürrheim ( Low Alemannic: ''Diirä'') is a town in the district of Schwarzwald-Baar, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated east of the Black Forest, 8 km north of Donaueschingen, and 6 km southeast of Villingen. From 195 ...

, Germany *

Dzierżoniów Dzierżoniów (; szl, Rychbach; german: Reichenbach im Eulengebirge ) is a town located at the foot of the Owl Mountains in southwestern Poland, within the Lower Silesian Voivodeship (from 1975 to 1998 in the former Wałbrzych Voivodeship). It is ...

, Poland *

Kežmarok Kežmarok (german: Kesmark or ; hu, Késmárk, yi, קעזמאַרק, Kezmark, pl, Kieżmark) is a town in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia (population 16,000), on the Poprad River. Prior to World War I, it was in Szepes county in the ...

, Slovakia *

Lanškroun Lanškroun (; german: Landskron) is a town in Ústí nad Orlicí District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 9,300 inhabitants. It lies on the border of the historical lands of Bohemia and Moravia. The historic town centr ...

, Czech Republic *

Târnăveni Târnăveni (, historically Diciosânmartin; Hungarian: ''Dicsőszentmárton'', ; German: ''Sankt Martin'', earlier ''Marteskirch'') is a city in Mureș County, central Romania. It lies on the Târnava Mică River in central Transylvania. The ci ...

, Romania

References

;Notes