The Culture of Hungary

Hungary’s diverse ethinicity consisting of the Magyars along with the Roma, German, Slovak, Croat, Serb and Romanian minorities has borne a rich culture. Formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Hungary has many folk traditions reflected in embroidery, pottery, architecture and carvings.

The country has a rich tradition in folk and classical music with prominent composers such as Franz Liszt, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Hungary is famous for its excellent mathematics education which has trained numerous outstanding scientists. Famous Hungarian mathematicians include Paul Erdős, famed for publishing in over forty languages and whose Erdős numbers are still tracked; János (John) Bolyai, designer of non-Euclidean (or "absolute") geometry in 1831; and John von Neumann, a pioneer of digital computing.

Hungarians have a number of important inventions to their credit. The noiseless match (János Irinyi), Rubik's cube (Ernő Rubik), and the krypton electric bulb (Imre Bródy) are some of them. Others include holography (Dennis Gabor), the ballpoint pen (László Bíró), the theory of the hydrogen bomb (Edward Teller), and the BASIC programming language.

Hungary is well known for its water sports such as swimming, canoeing, and water polo.