South Pest

Most of Pest’s low-density southeast districts used to be separate towns until their integration into the capital in 1950, and look back on a history of agriculture, Ottoman depredation, and aggressive Socialist development. In the east, Budapest’s Franz Liszt International Airport sprawls over the former site 19th century vineyards. The hill on which they stood was flattened to make space for the construction, but its old name Ferihegy is still the local vernacular for the airport. In the middle of the Danube, technically belonging neither to Buda nor Pest, the district of Csepel occupies the northern end of Csepel Island. The first royal seat of Hungary’s founding Árpád dynasty in the middle ages, Csepel became Budapest’s center for heavy industry in the 19th century, and generally speaking still looks the part.