Buda and Pest: why were they two cities?

Look across the river from the Pest promenade and you can still see the difference: opposite, a bank that climbs towards the castle; behind you, a flat city stretching inland.

Why were Buda and Pest separate cities?

First, the lie of the land. UNESCO describes Budapest as made up of two originally quite separate cities: Buda on a rocky spur on the right bank, and Pest on the plain on the left.

Then, history. It may look the other way round, but the castle town isn't the older of the two. According to UNESCO, Pest was the first medieval urban centre, and it was devastated in 1241 and 1242. Its parish church, already standing in 1046, was destroyed by the Mongols. A few years later, King Béla IV built the castle of Buda on the spur opposite. From then on, its story ran alongside that of the Hungarian monarchy.

And the river. Pest grew up exactly where the Danube is at its narrowest as it passes through the city, a spot where people crossed by boat. The Romans, whose city of Aquincum lay on the far bank and a little to the north, built a fort here on the Pest side, Contra-Aquincum, which kept watch over the trade routes into the lands of the Sarmatians.

How did people cross the Danube before the bridges?

It depended on the season. Outside winter, people used a pontoon: a line of boats lashed together with a deck on top. When the cold set in it had to come out, or the ice would wreck it. And when the Danube froze solid, the river itself became the bridge: the municipal authorities inspected the ice, signposted the routes, strengthened them and scattered straw over the top. It wasn't free, of course.

The danger came when the ice broke loose and began drifting downstream. On those days the far bank might as well have been another country: no getting there on foot, and none by boat either. The guests at one of the celebrations Buda held for Palatine József's wedding found that out in 1800. The king's representative in Hungary had brought home a new bride, and the cream of Pest society was there when news spread that the ice was on the move. Nobody could get home, so the festivities ran on for two days and nights. There are worse ways to be cut off.

Twenty years later, the river played a nastier trick on someone in no mood for a party. Count István Széchenyi, then a young hussar officer, was travelling to Buda because his father had just died. On 29 December 1820, in a ferocious blizzard, he reached the Pest bank. The pontoon had been gone for weeks, and no boatman would take on that river. He had to wait until 5 January 1821. The day before, he noted in his diary that he was ready to hand over a full year's income to see a fixed bridge built across the Danube.

Where does the name Budapest come from?

Budapest is simply Buda plus Pest. And the word is older than the city. On 10 February 1832, with Széchenyi pushing it along, the association that was to build the bridge was set up, and its official name already included Budapest: a good four decades before any unified capital existed. Who first put the two words together, we don't know.

That promise led to the Chain Bridge. The design was by the Englishman William Tierney Clark, and the man in charge on site was a 28-year-old Scot who shared his surname, Adam Clark, without being family. The engineers went for a suspension bridge with three spans precisely so that the drifting ice would meet as few piers as possible. And it brought a novelty that scandalised more than a few: everyone paid the toll, nobles included.

It opened on 20 November 1849, without the man who'd driven it: Széchenyi was ill and in a sanatorium, and he was never able to walk across the finished bridge. UNESCO says the bridge symbolised the reunification of Buda and Pest, which didn't actually come about until 1873.

When did Buda and Pest unite?

A law settled it: Act XXXVI of 1872. The three towns, together with Margaret Island, were to become one municipality called Budapest. The new capital would have self-government, choose its own officials and be able to put its petitions directly to Parliament.

Were all three towns in party mood? Not really. According to the Budapest History Museum, the merger worried everyone. People in Pest feared it would hold them back; in Buda, that they'd lose a rather conservative peace and quiet; and Óbuda, the smallest, that it would count for very little beside its two neighbours. Pest set the pace and the others trailed along without enthusiasm, in what the museum calls an 'old-gentlemanly' way.

The birthday the city celebrates is 17 November 1873. Its first officials, though, were chosen earlier: according to the Vigadó itself, the grand concert and ballroom building on the Pest promenade, the founding assembly met in one of its halls on 25 October and elected Károly Ráth as the first Lord Mayor.

The same building heard Christus, Liszt's oratorio, on 9 November. The Vigadó counts it among the celebrations of the union; a musicological study, among the tributes marking fifty years of the composer's career. Ráth brought the two together in his toast: the newborn capital was getting its first chance to shine.

Can you still tell they were two cities?

Yes. UNESCO points out that Budapest has kept the separate characters of the former Pest, Buda and Óbuda: the Castle Quarter, medieval and Baroque, set against the remarkably uniform architecture of Pest, laid out in avenues radiating from the centre and boulevards in rings.

If you ask us, the real union began when getting to the other side stopped depending on the ice. That's our reading, not a fact. The fact is this: the law came twenty-four years after the bridge.

Fact or legend.

Fact: until 1873, Buda, Pest and Óbuda were separate municipalities; an 1872 law united them, and Budapest officially came into being on 17 November 1873.

Fact: Pest was the first medieval urban centre; Buda Castle was built a few years after the devastation of 1241 and 1242.

Fact: for centuries the river was crossed by boat or over the ice; Széchenyi waited a week by the river over the winter of 1820–21.

Fact: the word Budapest already appears in 1832, in the name of the bridge association. We don't know who coined it.

Attributed interpretation: the fear of all three towns about the union is how the Budapest History Museum describes it.

With reservations: the assembly of 25 October at the Vigadó (reported by the building itself; we haven't seen the minutes).

Differing accounts: whether Christus was played for the union (as the Vigadó tells it) or for the tribute to Liszt held in those same days (as a musicological study shows).

Our reading: that the city began to come together with the bridge.

Where to hear it

Podtour tells this story on "Along the Danube, from Bridge to Bridge", Budapest's free route, which runs along the Pest bank between the Elisabeth and Chain bridges. The stop "The Day Budapest Was Born" is heard on the promenade, with both banks in view. "The Frozen River and the Promise" and "Who Paid for the Bridge?" tell the story of Széchenyi's wait and of who paid for the bridge. And the first stop, "The Church in the Bridge's Way", explains why it all began at the narrowest point of the river.

That's twelve stops in just over a kilometre, almost flat and all from the street.

If you're planning your trip, our Budapest guide has the practical side covered.

Buda and Pest: why were they two cities, and when did they unite?

Why were Buda and Pest separate cities?

How did people cross the Danube before the bridges?

Where does the name Budapest come from?

When did Buda and Pest unite?

Can you still tell they were two cities?

Where to hear it

Further reading

Where to hear this story

Along the Danube, from Bridge to Bridge

Plan your time in Budapest

Your first city,
on Podtour.

Your first city,
on Podtour.

Why were Buda and Pest separate cities?

How did people cross the Danube before the bridges?

Where does the name Budapest come from?

When did Buda and Pest unite?

Can you still tell they were two cities?

Where to hear it

Further reading

Where to hear this story

Along the Danube, from Bridge to Bridge

Plan your time in Budapest

Your first city,on Podtour.

Your first city,on Podtour.

Your first city,
on Podtour.

Your first city,
on Podtour.