Comitatus (Kingdom of Hungary)

A comitatus ( or a comitat, in English usually a county; for the various names, their origin and use see here) is the name of an administrative unit in the Kingdom of Hungary and in the Republic of Hungary from the 10th century until 1949 when it was abolished (more precisely: renamed) by the new constitution.

The area of the Kingdom of Hungary also included parts of present-day neighbouring countries of Hungary, i.e.:

• Austria - in Burgenland
• Croatia - in central Croatia and Slavonia,
• Serbia - in Voivodina,
• Slovakia - the whole present-day country,
• Slovenia - in Prekmurje,
• Poland (not a current neighbor) - few localities in the Carpathians.
• Romania - in Transylvania and Banat.
• Ukraine - in Carpathian Ruthenia,

The word comitatus is also used for the administrative units (megye) in present-day Hungary (since 1949, when the base of the current constitution of Hungary was created). For those counties see Counties of Hungary. This article only deals with the period before the Treaty of Trianon of 1920.

For lists of the individual counties see Administrative divisions of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Royal counties (late 10th century - late 13th century)

History

The Magyars settled in the Pannonian Basin in 895, and after 902 they largely took over the system of counties (called župa) and castle districts used in this territory by Great Moravia. The Hungarian Principality arose after 955 and in the 10th century its territory was restricted to present-day western...
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