Petőfibánya is a village in

Heves County Heves county (, ) 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 (county), Pest, Nógrád (county), Nógrád, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén 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 ...

, beside the

Zagyva The Zagyva is a river in Hungary. This 179 km long river drains a basin of 5,677 km2. The source is near Salgótarján in Nógrád county. It flows through the towns of Bátonyterenye, Pásztó, Hatvan and Jászberény and flows into t ...

river, under the

Mátra The Mátra () 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. Formation Pre-volcanic formations The formation of the Mátra ...

mountain range. As of the 2022 census, it has a population of 2457 (see Demographics). The village is located 2.7 km from (Nr. 81)

Hatvan–Fiľakovo railway Hatvan– Fiľakovo railway is a non-electrified railway connecting Hatvan, Hungary with Fiľakovo, Slovakia. Once a major connecting railway, the line currently sees only local Regionalbahn service and local goods traffic. It is double tracke ...

line, 2.9 km from the main road 21, and 11.9 km from the M3 motorway. The closest train station with public transport is in

Lőrinci Lőrinci is a town in Heves County, Hungary, beside of the Zagyva river. As of 2022 census, it has a population of 5352 (see Demographics). The town is located beside the (Nr. 81) Hatvan–Fiľakovo railway line and the Main road 21 (Hungary), ...

History

At the end of the 19th century, the owner of the area was the Schossberger family, who used the area for grape production. The center of the estate was a farm called ''Pernyepuszta''. The extraction of the discovered

lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered the lowest ...

began in 1942 by the Mátravidék Coal Mines Company and an

industrial railway An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics, or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British r ...

was built from

to the mine. The creation of miners' apartments began in 1943 around the mine. Mining was interrupted in the autumn of 1944, and the equipment was hidden in the mine, because of the

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

. At the beginning of 1945, the apartments were once again filled with miners, and the operation of the mine resumed in 1948. The settlement was named Petőfibánya (''Petőfi mine'') in 1949 after the Hungarian poet

Sándor Petőfi Sándor Petőfi ( []; né Petrovics; ; ; 1 January 1823 – most likely 31 July 1849) was a Hungarian poet and Classical Liberalism, liberal revolutionary. He is considered Hungary's national poet, and was one of the key figures of the Hungari ...

. The mined coal was processed at the . A doctor's office was built after 1950, together with a dentist's office, the cultural center, sports fields, the school and houses with gardens were built. The effective work of the miners was recognized with state awards in 1959. The appearance of

open-pit mining Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially ...

marked the end of mining in the settlement. The mine was closed in 1967, as extraction became more economical in Ecséd and Visonta, but the lignite wealth remained. However, the population did not leave the mining settlement, but remained and started

commuting Commuting is periodically recurring travel between a place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regular o ...

to other places. The settlement was officially part of

till 1989, then formed an independent village.

Demographics

According the 2022 census, 89.3% of the population were of Hungarian ethnicity, 0.7% were Ukrainian and 10.5% were did not wish to answer. The religious distribution was as follows: 22.3%

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, 2.0%

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

, 34.1% non-denominational, and 38.1% did not wish to answer. 2447 people live in the village and 10 in a farm. Population by years:

Politics

''Mayors since 1990'': * 1990–1992: László Fekete (independent) * 1992–1994: István Papp (independent) * 1994–2010: László Fekete (independent) * 2010–2019: Éva Barkóczy, Mrs. Juhász (independent) * 2019–: Péter Juhász (independent)

References

Populated places in Heves County Socialist planned cities Planned communities in Hungary {{Heves-geo-stub