Budapest City Analysis

1. Where does your city fall in the hierarchy of Central Places? Give specific examples of other central places (both smaller and bigger) associated with your city.

I am studying abroad in Budapest, Hungary in the fall. Budapest is the capital city of Hungary and it is the largest city with a population of 1.735 million people. This is a metropolitan size city. There is not a larger city than Budapest, so some examples of smaller central places are a large city Szekesfehervar (population 100,000), smaller city Erd (65,200), two towns Dunakeszi (population 40, 300) and Godollo (population 34,100), small towns Vecses (population 20,500), Dunaharaszti (population 20,000), Pilisorosvar (population 12,000), and Biatorbagy (population 10,700).

2. What does your city offer that wouldn't be available in a smaller place? What is unavailable locally, but that would be available in a higher order city?

Most importantly Budapest is the main hub of Hungary. The railways, highways, and motorways all flow through Budapest, for the most part. There are more specialized buildings in Budapest like the Parliamentary Building. Budapest also has the famous Andrassy Avenue with historic buildings and scenic views. National museums are located in Budapest. There is one castle and a couple museums in Szekesfehervar, where Budapest has many many more. Szekesfehervar has about four major companies, while Budapest has well over 200.

One thing Budapest does not have is a big fashion hub or company. There are big fashion hubs in metropolitan areas like New York City or Paris. Hungary's fashion is on the rise but is not quite to the level of other countries. Budapest has a few stadiums, but their largest has a capacity of about 56,000. The largest stadium in the US has a capacity of 109,000 people. This is almost twice the size of the stadium in Budapest. This is partly because of the population difference of the US compared to Hungary. Hungary does have some ports because they are on the Danube River, but these ports are not nearly the size of ocean ports worldwide.