
Bugac is a
village
A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...
in
Bács-Kiskun county, in the
Southern Great Plain
The Southern Great Plain ( ) is a statistical ( NUTS 2) region of Hungary. It is part of Great Plain and North (NUTS 1) region. The Southern Great Plain includes the counties of Bács-Kiskun, Békés, and Csongrád-Csanád. The region is in the ...
region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...
of southern
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 ...
.
It covers an
area
Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-di ...
of and has a
population
Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...
of 2889 people (2010).
The surrounding area, ''Bugac puszta'' is the largest of seven disjoint units making up the
Kiskunság National Park.
History
Bugac was founded by the local government of
Kecskemét
Kecskemét ( ) is a city with county rights in central Hungary. It is the List of cities and towns of Hungary, eighth-largest city in the country, and the county seat of Bács-Kiskun County, Bács-Kiskun.
Kecskemét lies halfway between the ca ...
, led by Kada Elek in 1909. Originally it belonged to Kecskemét province in the 19th century.
The
Book of Dede Korkut
The ''Book of Dede Korkut'' or ''Book of Korkut Ata'' (, ; ; ) is the most famous among the dastans or epic stories of the Oghuz Turks. The stories carry morals and values significant to the social lifestyle of the nomadic Turkic peoples and ...
, where the most famous among the epic stories of the
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...
are collected, mentions
Bughachuk, which in Turkic languages is also spelled 'Buğac'. Therefore, many people tend to believe that these two proper names are correlated.
The ''
Great Kurultáj'' (tribal assembly of the Hun – Turkic nations, celebration of the preservation of the ancient traditions) is usually hosted in this small town every 2 years.
Countryside
Although Bugac is a part of the Great Plains it is known to have a few features distinct from the plains. Sand hills, created by strong winds, cover several square kilometers of the region, resulting in a unique landscape around the village. These hills range from 10 meters to 50 meters in height. Lack of vegetation due to the poor quality of the soil in this region caused sand hills, which continually shifted and flew with the winds.
In the eighteenth century,
Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa (Maria Theresia Walburga Amalia Christina; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was the ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position suo jure, in her own right. She was the ...
decided to stop the sand winds by afforestation. Bugac is now surrounded by forests which cover the sand hills around the countryside. This unique land form is different from 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 ...
. Bugac is the part of the Kiskunsagi National Park which is the second national park of Hungary, founded in 1975. The first national park was of the Hortobágy National Park in 1973.
References
External links
* in Hungarian
{{Authority control
Populated places in Bács-Kiskun County