Dévaványa is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

in northern

Békés county Békés (, , ) is an administrative division (county or ''vármegye'') in south-eastern Hungary, on the border with Romania. It shares borders with the Hungarian counties Csongrád-Csanád, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, and Hajdú-Bihar. The capital ...

, 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 ...

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 ...

Geography

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 216.65 km² 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 6,793 people (2024).

History

The town first appeared in writing in the 1330s, first under the name "''Jana''" and then under the name "''Vana''". In 1523,

Louis II of Hungary Louis II (; ; ; ; 1 July 1506 – 29 August 1526) was King of Hungary, King of Croatia, Croatia and King of Bohemia, Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. He died during the Battle of Mohács fighting the Ottoman Empire, Ottomans, whose victory led to the Ot ...

elevated the town's status to that of a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rura ...

. In 1523, the town can first be spotted on maps of Hungary under the name "''Wama''". In 1693, an army of

Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...

decimated the town, causing the majority of its inhabitants to flee to the town of Tiszabábolna in

Borsod County Borsod was an administrative county (Comitatus (Kingdom of Hungary), comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. The capital of the county was Miskolc. After World War II, the county was merged with the Hungarian parts of Abaúj-Torna County and Zempl� ...

Twin towns – sister cities

Dévaványa is twinned with: *

Cristuru Secuiesc Cristuru Secuiesc (; , ) is a town in Harghita County, Romania. It lies in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania. The town administers two villages: Betești (''Betfalva''), part of Mugeni until 2004, and Filiaș (' ...

, Romania (1994)

References

External links

* in Hungarian Populated places in Békés County {{Bekes-geo-stub