Ethnic Map of Hungary by Jenö Cholnoky
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Jeney, J.
1TU DRESDEN Email: janos_gyoergy.jeney@tu-dresden.de
Abstract
Jenö Cholnoky was born in Veszprém in Hungary on 23 July 1870. He attended school in Veszprém and Pápa. He was still at school when he started writing about topics concerning geography. He wanted to become a geography teacher, but his father wanted him to attend a technical university, because according to him all teachers were poor. He attended the Technical University of Budapest where he studied hydrology, after which he became an assistant at the same university, where he met Lajos Lóczy, who was at that time a famous geographer. Cholnoky went on a scholarship to China with the recommendation of Lóczy. While fulfilling his tasks in China he, came in contact with ethnography. In 1905 he moved to Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca) where he became professor at the University of Kolozsvár, spending 15 years there. In 1919 he fled Kolozsvár as the Romanian forces were approaching the city. After arriving in Budapest, he was elected as an expert to the committee who prepared for the peace talks on behalf of Hungary. The ethnic map made by Jenö Cholnoky is based on the census of 1900. The map tried to represent every ethnic group situated in a certain area according to their presence. Hungary at the time was divided into 64 counties (72 including Croatia). These were divided into 442 districts. Cholnoky took the total population of each district and divided the area into small rectangles on the map. He coloured the rectangles according to the ratio of a particular ethnic group in the district. So if a particular ethnic group made up 20% of the population of a particular district, 20% of the rectangles were coloured representing that particular ethnic group. This has the advantage that all ethnic groups appear on the map, even if they live in a minority in the area. This also helps to present the areas of mixed ethnicity. This method only localizes a certain ethnic group to a particular district. Cholnoky did try to place the rectangles so that they do represent the geographic location of the ethnic groups within the district, but this was not always possible. Since the scale of the map was 1:2350000 this did not make too much of a difference. This method gives a very good picture of all ethnic groups living in Hungary at the time. Since the districts were rather small entities, the distribution of the population can be seen very well. If only the majority is shown on the map, then ethnic groups who form a minority, or where the majority is localized only in a small area can disappear on the map. With this method Cholnoky managed to overcome this difficulty. In the Banat for example, the mixture of ethnic groups can be seen very well. The same can be said about the southern part of Tansdanubia, and most parts of Transylvania. In the Banat there is a mixture of Hungarian, German, Serb, Slovak and Ruthenian populations. Similarly in Transylvania the mixture of Hungarian, German and Romanian population can be seen. In those areas where a certain ethnic group makes up the overwhelming majority, large homogenious surfaces can be seen. This can be seen on the Great Hungarian Plane, in western Transdanubia, eastern Transylvania, where the Hungarian population had overwhelming majorities, while in most parts of south-western Transylvania the same can be seen in case of the ethnic Romanians. In northern Hungary the areas of overwhelming Slovak majority can be observed, while on the western rim of Transdanubia the German majority dominates. This map gives us a very good picture of the ethnic structure of the country, as all ethnic groups are represented.