1.
Great Plains
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The region is known for supporting extensive cattle ranching and dry farming. The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies, some geographers include some territory of northern Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at the Rio Grande. The term Great Plains is used in the United States to describe a sub-section of the even more vast Interior Plains physiographic division and it also has currency as a region of human geography, referring to the Plains Indians or the Plains States. There is no region referred to as the Great Plains in The Atlas of Canada, in terms of human geography, the term prairie is more commonly used in Canada, and the region is known as the Prairie Provinces or simply the Prairies. The region is about 500 mi east to west and 2,000 mi north to south, much of the region was home to American bison herds until they were hunted to near extinction during the mid/late 19th century. It has an area of approximately 500,000 sq mi, current thinking regarding the geographic boundaries of the Great Plains is shown by this map at the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The term Great Plains, for the region west of about the 96th or 98th meridian, nevin Fennemans 1916 study, Physiographic Subdivision of the United States, brought the term Great Plains into more widespread usage. Before that the region was almost invariably called the High Plains, today the term High Plains is used for a subregion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains are the westernmost portion of the vast North American Interior Plains, during the Cretaceous Period, the Great Plains were covered by a shallow inland sea called the Western Interior Seaway. However, during the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene, the seaway had begun to recede, leaving thick marine deposits. During the Cenozoic era, specifically about 25 million years ago during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, existing forest biomes declined and grasslands became much more widespread. The grasslands provided a new niche for mammals, including many ungulates and glires, traditionally, the spread of grasslands and the development of grazers have been strongly linked. The vast majority of animals became extinct in North America at the end of the Pleistocene. In general, the Great Plains have a variety of weather through the year, with very cold and harsh winters and very hot. Wind speeds are very high, especially in winter. Grasslands are among the least protected biomes, humans have converted much of the prairies for agricultural purposes or to create pastures. The Great Plains have dust storms mostly every year or so, the 100th meridian roughly corresponds with the line that divides the Great Plains into an area that receive 20 in or more of rainfall per year and an area that receives less than 20 in. The region is subjected to extended periods of drought, high winds in the region may then generate devastating dust storms
2.
Hungary
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Hungary is a unitary parliamentary republic in Central Europe. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken language in Europe. Hungarys capital and largest metropolis is Budapest, a significant economic hub, major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Győr. His great-grandson Stephen I ascended to the throne in 1000, converting the country to a Christian kingdom, by the 12th century, Hungary became a middle power within the Western world, reaching a golden age by the 15th century. Hungarys current borders were established in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon after World War I, when the country lost 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, following the interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary became a state of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a four-decade-long communist dictatorship. On 23 October 1989, Hungary became again a democratic parliamentary republic, in the 21st century, Hungary is a middle power and has the worlds 57th largest economy by nominal GDP, as well as the 58th largest by PPP, out of 188 countries measured by the IMF. As a substantial actor in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds 36th largest exporter and importer of goods, Hungary is a high-income economy with a very high standard of living. It keeps up a security and universal health care system. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and part of the Schengen Area since 2007, Hungary is a member of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the AIIB, the Council of Europe and Visegrád Group. Well known for its cultural history, Hungary has been contributed significantly to arts, music, literature, sports and science. Hungary is the 11th most popular country as a tourist destination in Europe and it is home to the largest thermal water cave system, the second largest thermal lake in the world, the largest lake in Central Europe, and the largest natural grasslands in Europe. The H in the name of Hungary is most likely due to historical associations with the Huns. The rest of the word comes from the Latinized form of Medieval Greek Oungroi, according to an explanation the Greek name was borrowed from Proto-Slavic Ǫgǔri, in turn borrowed from Oghur-Turkic Onogur. Onogur was the name for the tribes who later joined the Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled the eastern parts of Hungary after the Avars. The Hungarians likely belonged to the Onogur tribal alliance and it is possible they became its ethnic majority. The Hungarian endonym is Magyarország, composed of magyar and ország, the word magyar is taken from the name of one of the seven major semi-nomadic Hungarian tribes, magyeri
3.
Pannonian Basin
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The Pannonian Basin or Carpathian Basin is a large basin in Central Europe. It is a subsystem of the Alps-Himalaya system. Most of the consists of the Great Hungarian Plain and the Little Hungarian Plain. The Pannonian Basin lies in the part of Central Europe. It forms a discrete unit set in the European landscape, surrounded by imposing geographic boundaries - the Carpathian Mountains, the Alps, the Dinarides. The Rivers Danube and Tisza divide the basin roughly in half and it extends roughly between Vienna in the northwest, Zagreb in the southwest, Belgrade in the southeast and Satu Mare in the northeast. The name Pannonian comes from Pannonia, a province of the Roman Empire, in English, the terms Pannonian Basin and Carpathian Basin are used synonymously. The name Pannonian is taken from that of Pannonia, a province of the Roman Empire, the historical province overlapped but was not coterminous with the geographical plain or basin. Pannonia Inferior covered much of the half of the basin. Pannonia Superior included the western fringe of the basin as well as part of the Eastern Alps, the southern fringe of the basin was in Dalmatia and Moesia. The eastern half of the basin was not conquered by the Romans, likewise, the parts north of the Danube were not in the empire, they were considered part of Germania, inhabited by the Quadi. The term Pannonian Plain refers to the parts of the Pannonian Basin as well as those of some adjoining regions like Lower Austria, Moravia, Bosnia. The lands adjoining the plain proper are also called peri-Pannonian. In Hungarian geographical literature various subdivisions of the Carpathian Mountains are also considered parts of the Carpathian Basin on the basis of traditional geopolitical divisions, julius Pokorny derived the name Pannonia from Illyrian, from the Proto-Indo-European root *pen-, swamp, water, wet. For its early settlers, the plain offered few sources of metals or stone, thus when archaeologists come upon objects of obsidian or chert, copper or gold, they have almost unparalleled opportunities to interpret ancient pathways of trade. The Pannonian plain is divided into two parts along the Transdanubian Mountains, the northwestern part is called Western Pannonian plain and the southeastern part Eastern Pannonian plain. The plain was named after the Pannon named Medes, various different peoples inhabited the plain during its history. In the first century BC, the parts of the plain belonged to the Dacian state
4.
Carpathian Mountains
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The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a mountain range system forming an arc roughly 1,500 km long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe. The Carpathians and their foothills also have many thermal and mineral waters, the Carpathians consist of a chain of mountain ranges that stretch in an arc from the Czech Republic in the northwest through Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine to Romania and Serbia. The highest range within the Carpathians is the Tatras, on the border of Slovakia and Poland, the second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks exceed 2,500 m. The divisions of the Carpathians are usually in three sections, Western Carpathians — Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. Eastern Carpathians — southeastern Poland, eastern Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, the term Outer Carpathians is frequently used to describe the northern rim of the Western and Eastern Carpathians. The most important cities in or near the Carpathians are, Bratislava and Košice in Slovakia, Kraków in Poland, Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu and Braşov in Romania, and Uzhhorod in Ukraine. In modern times, the range is called Karpaty in Czech, Polish, Slovak and Карпати in Ukrainian, Carpați in Romanian, Karpaten in German, Kárpátok in Hungarian and Karpati or Карпати in Serbian. Although the toponym was recorded already by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE, for instance, Havasok was its medieval Hungarian name, Rus and Romanian chronicles referred to it as Hungarian Mountains. The archaic Polish word karpa meant rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, the more common word skarpa means a sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as Montes Sarmatici, the Western Carpathians were called Carpates, a name that is first recorded in Ptolemys Geographia. In the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, which relates ancient Germanic legends about battles between Goths and Huns, the name Karpates appears in the predictable Germanic form as Harvaða fjöllum, inter Alpes Huniae et Oceanum est Polonia by Gervase of Tilbury, has described in his Otia Imperialia in 1211. Thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Hungarian documents named the mountains Thorchal, Tarczal or less frequently Montes Nivium, the northwestern Carpathians begin in Slovakia and southern Poland. They surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a semicircle, sweeping towards the southeast. The total length of the Carpathians is over 1,500 km, the highest altitudes of the Carpathians occur where they are widest. The Carpathians cover an area of 190,000 km2 and, after the Alps, although commonly referred to as a mountain chain, the Carpathians do not actually form an uninterrupted chain of mountains. Rather, they consist of several orographically and geologically distinctive groups, the Carpathians at their highest altitude are only as high as the middle region of the Alps, with which they share a common appearance, climate, and flora. The Carpathians are separated from the Alps by the Danube, the two ranges meet at only one point, the Leitha Mountains at Bratislava. The river also separates them from the Balkan Mountains at Orşova in Romania, the valley of the March and Oder separates the Carpathians from the Silesian and Moravian chains, which belong to the middle wing of the great Central Mountain System of Europe
5.
Sava
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The Sava is a river in Central and Southeastern Europe, a right tributary of the Danube. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia, along the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its central part is a border of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. The Sava forms the border of the Balkan Peninsula. The Sava is 990 kilometres long, including the 45-kilometre Sava Dolinka headwater rising in Zelenci and it is the greatest tributary of the Danube by volume of water, and second-largest after Tisza in terms of catchment area and length. It drains a significant portion of the Dinaric Alps region, through the tributaries of Drina, Bosna, Kupa, Una, Vrbas, Lonja, Kolubara, Bosut. The Sava is one of the longest rivers in Europe and among a handful of European rivers of that length that do not drain directly into a sea. The population in the Sava River basin is estimated at 8,176,000, the Sava is navigable for larger vessels from the confluence of the Kupa River in Sisak, Croatia, approximately two-thirds of its length. The Sava River is formed from the Sava Dolinka and the Sava Bohinjka headwaters in northwest Slovenia, the Sava Dolinka rises at the Zelenci Pools near Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, in a valley separating the Julian Alps from the Karavanke mountain range. The spring is located near the Slovene-Italian border at 833 metres above sea level, the Sava Dolinka spring is fed by groundwater possibly exhibiting bifurcation of source karst aquifer to the Sava and Soča basins. Nadiža creek, a losing stream flowing nearby, is the source of Zelenci Pools water. The Sava Dolinka is considered the Savas initial, 45-kilometre segment, the Sava Bohinjka originates in Ribčev Laz, at the confluence of the Jezernica, a short watercourse flowing out from Lake Bohinj and the Mostnica River. The watercourse flows 41 kilometres —including the length of the Savica—east to Radovljica, downstream from the confluence, the river is referred to as the Sava. The Sava is located in Southeast Europe, flowing through Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and its total length is 990 kilometres, including the 45-kilometre Sava Dolinka and the 945-kilometre Sava proper. As a right tributary of the Danube, the river belongs to the Black Sea drainage basin and it is also the largest tributary of the Danube by discharge. The river course is used to describe the northern boundary of the Balkans. Before the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the river was located completely inside Yugoslav borders, downstream of Radovljica, the Sava proceeds southeast towards Kranj. Between Kranj and Medvode, its course comprises the Lake Trboje and the Lake Zbilje reservoirs, built for the Mavčiče, the Sava then flows through the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, where another reservoir is located on the river, adjacent to the Tacen Whitewater Course
6.
Gyula, Hungary
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Gyula is a town in Békés County, Hungary. The town is best known for its Medieval castle and a thermal bath, ferenc Erkel, the composer of the Hungarian national anthem, and Albrecht Dürer the Elder, the father of Albrecht Dürer, also were born in Gyula. Gyula is located in the Great Hungarian Plain up on the River Fehér-Körös,235 km southeast from Budapest and 5 km from the border with Romania, békéscsaba-Gyula-Kötegyán railway line and Highway 44 also cross the town. Highway 44 is an expressway between Gyula and the county seat Békéscsaba. Gyula is named after the Medieval Hungarian ruler Gyula III, Gyula was also a title among the Hungarian tribes and still a popular given name for boys. The first recorded reference to Gyula was in a document dated 1313 which mentions a monastery called Gyulamonostora, by 1332 the settlement around the monastery was being called Gyula / Jula. The construction of Gyula Castle began in the 14th century but finished only in the mid-16th century and it was the property of the Maróthy family and later John Corvinus, the illegitimate son of Matthias Corvinus. Turks conquered Gyula in 1566 and the remained the part of the Ottoman Empire until 1694. Due to the wars, native Hungarian population fled from Gyula, the landlord János Harruckern invited German, Hungarian, and Romanian settlers, who re-established the town in the early 18th century. Gyula became a popular tourist destination in the 20th century, the bath was established in 1942. The castle was restored in 1962, according to the 2011 census the total population of Gyula was 31,067, of whom there were 25,895 Hungarians,974 Romanians,971 Germans and 102 Romani by ethnicity. In Hungary people can more than one ethnicity, so some people declared Hungarian. Gyula is the center of the small native Romanian community in Hungary, in 2011 there were 5,726 Roman Catholic,5,560 Hungarian Reformed,606 Orthodox and 507 Lutheran in Gyula. 8,304 people were irreligious and 453 Atheist, while 9,012 people did not declare their religion
7.
Szolnok
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Szolnok is the county seat of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county in central Hungary. Its location on the banks of the Tisza river, at the heart of the Great Hungarian Plain, has made it an important cultural, Szolnok is located in the heart of the Great Hungarian Plain, at the confluence of the Tisza and Zagyva rivers. It lies about 100 kilometres east-southeast from Budapest, the climate of the area is continental, with hot summers following relatively mild winters. The region is one of the sunniest in Europe, the precipitation is about 490 millimetres annually. Climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round, the Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is Cfb. Szolnok was named for the first steward of the city, Szaunik or Zounok, the town was first officially mentioned under the name Zounok in 1075. In the following centuries, it was recorded as Zounok, Saunic, Zounuc, the variety of spellings likely comes from phonetic discrepancies occurring when Hungarian sounds - originally written in runic Old Hungarian script - were recorded using the Latin alphabet. Another possibility revolves around speculation that the name Szaunik was not a name after all. In most other languages, the citys Hungarian name is used without derivation, the city has its own name in a few languages, deriving from these languages historical relationship to the city. The area was first settled in the Paleolithic era, the first known inhabitants lived in temporary tent-like structures made from reeds, or in more permanent dwellings made of hides draped over wooden poles. They were hunters of mammoth, reindeer, deer, and boar, archeologists have also found stone tools from this era, some made of flint. Fishing equipment such as hooks and weights from nets, dating from the Neolithic era and these were usually made from clay, as were ritual statues of gods, bulls, and stylized women. In Szandaszőlős, a suburb of Szolnok, a permanent Neolithic era settlement was discovered, by the Mesolithic era, the inhabitants of the area had settled into permanent villages, where they practiced agriculture and animal husbandry. Reconstructions of these settlements can be seen in Szolnoks Damjanich János Museum, the houses of this era were largely made of wood. They utilized carts for transporting goods and large earthenware granaries for storing grain, in the Bronze Age, new peoples arrived in the Carpathian Basin. In Tószeg, a neighbor of Szolnok, a settlement was established. The villagers kept horses, pigs, and sheep, as well as collecting clams from the river, certain artifacts have been found, such as bronze tools, swords, and shells, which suggest long-distance trade. The Romans were not able to establish permanent settlements on the Alföld, so in the time before the arrival of the Hungarians in 896, the area was populated by Scythians, Celts, and Sarmatians
8.
Cherry
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A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe. The cherry fruits of commerce usually are obtained from a number of species such as cultivars of the sweet cherry. The name cherry also refers to the tree, and is sometimes applied to almonds and visually similar flowering trees in the genus Prunus, as in ornamental cherry, cherry blossom. Wild cherry may refer to any of the species growing outside of cultivation. The subgenus is native to the regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Other cherry fruits are members of subgenus Padus, most eating cherries are derived from either Prunus avium, the sweet cherry, or from Prunus cerasus, the sour cherry. The indigenous range of the sweet cherry extends through most of Europe, western Asia, and parts of northern Africa, and the fruit has been consumed throughout its range since prehistoric times. A cultivated cherry is recorded as having brought to Rome by Lucius Licinius Lucullus from northeastern Anatolia, also known as the Pontus region. Cherries were introduced into England at Teynham, near Sittingbourne in Kent, by order of Henry VIII, cherries arrived in North America early in the settlement of Brooklyn, New York when the region was under Dutch sovereignty. Trades people leased or purchased land to plant orchards and produce gardens, behind the house sold by Anthony Jansen from Salee to Barent Dirksen. Both species originate in Europe and western Asia, they do not cross-pollinate, some other species, although having edible fruit, are not grown extensively for consumption, except in northern regions where the two main species will not grow. Irrigation, spraying, labor, and their propensity to damage from rain, nonetheless, demand is high for the fruit. In commercial production, cherries are harvested by using a mechanized shaker, hand picking is also widely used to harvest the fruit to avoid damage to both fruit and trees. Common rootstocks include Mazzard, Mahaleb, Colt, and Gisela Series, sour cherries require no pollenizer, while few sweet varieties are self-fertile. Like most temperate-latitude trees, cherry seeds require exposure to cold to germinate, the pits are planted in the autumn and seedlings emerge in the spring. A cherry tree will take three to four years in the field to produce its first crop of fruit, and seven years to attain full maturity, because of the cold-weather requirement, none of the Prunus genus can grow in tropical climates. Cherries have a growing season and can grow in most temperate latitudes. Cherries blossom in April and the season for the cherry harvest is in the summer
9.
Goulash
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Goulash is a soup or stew of meat and vegetables, seasoned with paprika and other spices. Originating from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, goulash is also a meal in Central Europe, Eastern Europe. Its origin traces back to the 9th century to stews eaten by Hungarian shepherds, back then, the cooked and flavored meat was dried with the help of the sun and packed into bags produced from sheeps stomachs, needing only water to make it into a meal. It is one of the dishes of Hungary and a symbol of the country. The name originates from the Hungarian gulyás, the word gulya means herd of cattle in Hungarian, and gulyás means herdsman or cowboy. The word gulyás originally meant only herdsman, but over time the dish became gulyáshús – that is to say, today, gulyás refers both to the herdsmen, and to the soup. From the Middle Ages until well into the 19th century, the Puszta was the home of massive herds of cattle and they were driven, in their tens of thousands, to Europe’s biggest cattle markets in Moravia, Vienna, Nuremberg and Venice. The herdsmen made sure there were always some cattle that had to be slaughtered along the way. In Hungarian cuisine, traditional Gulyásleves, bográcsgulyás, pörkölt, and paprikás were thick stews made by cattle herders, garlic, caraway seed, bell pepper, and wine are optional. These dishes can be made as soups rather than stews, excepting paprikás, the Hungarian stews do not rely on a flour or roux for thickening. Tomato is an addition, totally unknown in the original recipe. Goulash can be prepared from beef, veal, pork, or lamb, meat is cut into chunks, seasoned with salt, and then browned with sliced onion in a pot with oil or lard. Paprika is added, along with water or stock, and the goulash is left to simmer, after cooking a while, garlic, whole or ground caraway seed, or soup vegetables like carrot, parsley root, peppers and celery may be added. Other herbs and spices could also be added, especially pepper, bay leaf. However, chili peppers are an addition, totally unknown in the original recipe. Diced potatoes may be added, since they provide starch as they cook, however, potatoes are a modern addition, totally unknown in the original recipe. A small amount of wine or wine vinegar may also be added near the end of cooking to round the taste. Goulash may be served with egg noodles called csipetke
Great Hungarian Plain travel guide from Wikivoyage
