Main information
Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg is one of the least-developed regions of Hungary. During the era of communist rule, thousands travelled regularly to other areas of Hungary to work. This migration stopped in the 1990s. Nyíregyháza evolved into a regional economic centre, where machinery, plastics, and rubber are manufactured. Food processing and the chemical, electronics, textile, and optical industries all play a significant role in the county’s economy.
The settlement of the county, with its network of villages, was typical of the Árpád conquest of Hungary. The mid-18th-century resettlement of the Tirpáks from Békés county, who were of Slovakian origin but became completely “Hungarianized,” solved the county’s problem of sparse population. The Treaty of Trianon, following World War I, ceded significant portions of the Szatmár and Bereg regions to Romania and Ukraine.
