City with county rights (Hungary)

A city with county rights (or urban county, Hungarian: megyei jogú város, MJV) is a level of administrative subdivision in Hungary. Since 1994 all county seats are automatically awarded this status, and between 2012–2022 this was the only way a city could earn county rights. All cities earned this status before 2012 have retained their status and there is no way to revoke the title by the law. From 2006 until 2022, there were 23 cities with county rights,^[1] and 25 since 1 May 2022.^[2] Before 1950, cities with former "municipal rights" (törvényhatósági jogú város) had a similar status as the present urban counties.

Budapest is not considered an urban county and has a special capital city status among the other Hungarian cities.

Every city with county rights is allowed to be subdivided into districts. The representative body is the General Assembly (közgyűlés) which elects with the County Assembly a council that takes care of different tasks related to the county.^[3] Cities with county rights performs the tasks and powers of the county as its own authority but must provide some public services to the whole or a large area of the county (eg. education, health services, cultural services). Assemblies of the county and the urban county cooperate via a coordination committee to prepare and coordinate common tasks.

History

Between 1954 and 1971, the four largest regional cities received the megyei jogú város title. These were Debrecen, Miskolc, Pécs and Szeged. Then, from 1971 to 1989, the four previous cities and Győr were granted a new status known as "county city" (megyei város). This status was also extended to three other cities in 1989: Kecskemét, Nyíregyháza and Székesfehérvár (county seats and over 100,000 residents). After the end of Communism, this status was abolished and replaced by the urban counties. In 1990 the earlier eight megyei város and twelve additional cities became megyei jogú város which reached 50 thousand residents as limited by law. In 1994 all county seat earned the title by law modification (Salgótarján and Szekszárd became urban counties). In 2006 Érd also earned the title after demanded since residents exceeded 50 thousand by the 2000s. Though some of the cities which are not county seats meanwhile decreased under the limit, they still retained their status (Dunaújváros, Hódmezővásárhely, Nagykanizsa). Since 2012 it is declared by law that earlier earned status could not be lost, as well that cities need to become county seats before earning urban city title. In 2022 the law was amended that National Assembly can grant the status to any city annexed to the law as a list, and the same time named Baja and Esztergom in the annex.^[4]

List

City	County	Population (2013)	Urban county since	Mayor
Baja	Bács-Kiskun	37 326	2022	Nyirati, Klára
Békéscsaba	Békés	61 046	1990	Szarvas, Péter
Debrecen	Hajdú-Bihar	204 333	1990	Papp, László
Dunaújváros	Fejér	46 813	1990	Pintér, Tamás
Eger	Heves	54 867	1990	Mirkóczi, Ádám
Érd	Pest	63 333	2006	Csőzik, László
Esztergom	Komárom-Esztergom	30 062	2022	Hernádi, Ádám
Győr	Győr-Moson-Sopron	128 567	1990	Dézsi, Csaba András
Hódmezővásárhely	Csongrád-Csanád	45 700	1990	Márki-Zay, Péter
Kaposvár	Somogy	65 337	1990	Szita, Károly
Kecskemét	Bács-Kiskun	111 863	1990	Szemereyné Pataki, Klaudia
Miskolc	Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén	162 905	1990	Veres, Pál
Nagykanizsa	Zala	49 070	1990	Balogh, László
Nyíregyháza	Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg	118 185	1990	Kovács, Ferenc
Pécs	Baranya	147 719	1990	Péterffy, Attila
Salgótarján	Nógrád	37 199	1994	Fekete, Zsolt
Sopron	Győr-Moson-Sopron	60 528	1990	Farkas, Ciprián
Szeged	Csongrád-Csanád	161 837	1990	Botka, László
Szekszárd	Tolna	33 599	1994	Ács, Rezső
Székesfehérvár	Fejér	99 247	1990	Cser-Palkovics András
Szolnok	Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok	73 193	1990	Szalay, Ferenc
Szombathely	Vas	77 547	1990	Nemény, András
Tatabánya	Komárom-Esztergom	67 406	1990	Szűcsné Posztovics, Ilona
Veszprém	Veszprém	60 876	1990	Porga, Gyula
Zalaegerszeg	Zala	59 618	1990	Balaicz, Zoltán