c. 14.5 million
Hungarians (Hungarian: Magyarok) or Magyars Magyars have been the main inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary that existed through most of the second millennium. Following that kingdom's disappearance at the Treaty of Trianon, Magyars have become minority inhabitants of Romania (1,440,000; see: Hungarian minority in Romania), Slovakia (520,500), Serbia (293,000; largely in Vojvodina), Ukraine and Russia (170,000), Austria (40,583), Croatia (16,500), the Czech Republic (14,600) and Slovenia (10,000). Significant groups of people with Magyar ancestry live in various other parts of the world (e.g. 1,400,000 in the United States), but unlike the Magyars living within the former Kingdom of Hungary, only a minority of these preserves the Hungarian language and tradition.
There was a referendum in Hungary in December 2004 on whether to grant Hungarian citizenship to Magyars living outside Hungary's borders (i.e. without requiring a permanent residence in Hungary). The referendum failed due to the insufficient voter turnout, and caused some recruitment of the local nationalist movements and parties in the surrounding countries.

Etymology
The origin of the Hungarians is partly disputed. The most widely accepted Finno-Ugric theory from the late nineteenth century is based primarily on linguistic and ethnographical arguments, while it is criticised by some as relying too much on linguistics. There are also other theories stating that the Magyars are descendants of Scythians, Huns, Avars, and/or Sumerians. These are primarily based on medieval legends, whose authenticity and scientific reliability is strongly questionable, as well as non-systematic linguistic similarities. Most scholars dismiss these claims as speculation.
The following section presents the Finno-Ugric theory of the origin of modern Hungarian people. For some other theories see Hungarian prehistory.
Finno-Ugric is a group of related languages, which does not mean that the peoples currently speaking those languages are equally related in terms of ethnicity. The same holds true, for example, for Indo-European languages. Also, the Ugric Hungarian language is about as distantly related to Finnic languages like Finnish and Estonian as, e.g., Russian is related to Italian or Spanish.

Ethnic affiliations and origins
During the fourth millennium BC, some of the earliest settlements of the Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples were situated east of the Ural Mountains, where they hunted and fished. From there, the Ugrians, settled in the wood-steppe parts of western Siberia (i.e. to the east of the Ural Mountains) from at least 2000 BC onwards. Their settlements closely resembled those of the north-western Andronovo Culture. More advanced tribes arriving from the southern steppes taught them how to farm, breed cattle and produce bronze objects. Around 1500 BC, they started to breed horses and horse riding became one of their typical activities.
Due to climatic changes in the early first millennium BC, the northern Ugrian subgroup (the Ob-Ugrians) moved to the lower Ob River, while southern Ugrians remained in the south and became nomadic herdsmen. Since these southern Ugrians became the ancestors of the proto-Magyars, this division marks the beginning of the Magyars as a distinct ethnic group. During the following centuries, the proto-Magyars continued to live in the wood-steppes and steppes southeast of the Ural Mountains, strongly influenced by their immediate neighbours, the ancient Sarmatians.

East of the Ural mountains (pre-fourth century AD)

Main articles: Yugra, Magna Hungaria, and Levedia Etelköz (c.830 to c.895)
In 895/896, probably under the leadership of Árpád, some Magyars crossed the Carpathians and entered the Carpathian Basin. The tribe called Magyars (Megyer) was the leading tribe of the Magyar alliance that conquered the center of the basin. At the same time (c.895), due to their involvement in the 894-896 Bulgaro-Byzantine war, Magyars in Etelköz were attacked by Bulgaria and then by their old enemies the Pechenegs. It is uncertain whether or not those conflicts were the cause of the Magyar departure from Etelköz.
In the Carpathian Basin, the Magyars initially occupied the Great Moravian territory at the upper/middle Tisza river, a scarcely populated territory, where, according to Arabian sources, Great Moravia used to send its criminals, and where the Roman Empire had settled the Iazyges centuries earlier. From there, they intensified their looting raids across continental Europe. In 900, they moved from the upper Tisza river to Transdanubia (Pannonia), which later became the core of the arising Hungarian state. Their allies, the Kabars (probably led by Kursan), appear to have settled in the region around Bihar. Upon entering the Carpathian Basin, the Magyars found a mainly Slavic population there.
Remnants of the Avars lived in the southwest and Romanians in the east and southeast, although the latter is a matter of controversy (see Origin of the Romanians). After the battle of Augsburg (956), the Magyars gradually changed their pastoral way of life to an agricultural one and borrowed hundreds of agricultural Slavic words. See History of Hungary for a continuation, and Hungary before the Magyars for the background.
Many of the Magyars, however, remained to the north of the Carpathians after 895/896, as archaeological findings suggest (e.g. Polish Przemysl). They seem to have joined the other Magyars in 900. There is also a consistent Hungarian population in Transylvania that is historically unrelated to the Magyars led by Árpád: the Székelys, 40% of the Hungarian minority in Romania. They are fully acknowledged as Magyars. The Székely people's origin, and in particular the time of their settlement in Transylvania, is a matter of historical controversy (see Székely for details).

Entering the Carpathian Basin (after 895)
The Magyar leader Árpád is believed to have led the Hungarians into the Carpathian Basin in 896. In 907, the Magyars destroyed Bavarian army at Bratislava and laying Germany, France and Italy open to Magyar raids. These raids were fast and devastating. The Magyars deafeated Louis the Child's Imperial Army near Augsburg in 910. From 917-925, Magyars raided through Basle, Alsace, Burgundy, Saxony, and Provence. Magyar expansion was checked at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. Although battle at Lechfeld stopped the Magyar raids against western Europe, the raids on the Balkan Peninsula continued until 970.
Today, the Magyars represent around 35% of the population of the Carpathian Basin. Their number is around twelve to thirteen million (2006), almost the same as in 1910. While other ethnic groups increased their numbers two, three or even more times during the twentieth century, the Magyar population stagnated. Between 1950 and 2000, the increase in Hungary's population was the third slowest in the world, after Bulgaria and St. Kitts and Nevis: 8.6% (from 9,338,000 to 10,137,000).

Some historians, especially Hungarians, support the theory that the Magyars' percentage in the Carpathian Basin was at an almost constant 80% during the Middle Ages, and began to decrease only at the time of the Ottoman conquest, reaching as low as around 39% (or 29% according to historians from outside Hungary) in the end of the eighteenth century. The decline of the Magyars was due to the constant wars, famines and plagues during the 150 years of Ottoman rule. The main zones of war were the territories inhabited by the Magyars, so the death toll among them was much higher than among other nationalities. In the 18th century their percentage declined further because of the influx of new settlers from Germany, Serbia, and other countries.
Others, particularly Slovak and Romanian historians, tend to emphasise the multi-ethnic nature of the Kingdom even in the Middle Ages and argue that the drastic change in the ethnic structure hypothesized by Hungarian historians in fact did not occur. Therefore, the Magyars are supposed to have accounted only for about 30-40% of the Kingdom's population since its establishment. In particular, there is a fierce debate among Magyar and Romanian historians about the ethnic composition of Transylvania through the times; see Origin of the Romanians. History after 900
Besides the various peoples mentioned above, the Magyars assimilated or were influenced by subsequent peoples arriving in the Carpathian Basin. Among these are the Cumanians, Pechenegs, Jazones, Germans and other Western European settlers in the Middle Ages. Romanians and Slovaks have lived together and blended with Magyars since early medieval times. Turks, who occupied the central part of present-day Hungary from c.1541 until c.1699, inevitably exerted an influence, as did the various nations (Germans, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats and others) that resettled depopulated territories after their departure. The advanced economic and political conditions of the Slavs, who had preceded the Magyars' arrival but continued to migrate thereafter, exerted a significant influence; several Hungarian words relating to agriculture, politics, religion and handicrafts were borrowed from Slavic languages. Both Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) minorities have been living in Hungary since the Middle Ages.

Maps and images

List of Hungarians
List of people of Hungarian origin
Hungarian minority in Romania
Hungarians in Vojvodina
Hungarians in Slovakia
Pole, Hungarian, two good friends
Csángó
Székely
Székelys of Bukovina
Magyarab
Jassic people
Kabar
Turul
Hungarian animals
Hungarian mythology