HAJDÚ-BIHAR // ÉSZAK-ALFÖLD

In July 2023 we worked around in the Northern Great Plain region of Hungary, focussing on the area around Debrecen and the town of  Hortobágy.

The area sits on and around the Hungarian steppe (or puszta) with Hortobágy being the key focus for this landscape. This is an UNESCO protected site and National Park which retains patterns of traditional pastoral farming. As the UNESCO website explains: 

The Puszta, represented by the Hortobágy National Park, is a complex mosaic of natural grasslands, loess ridges, alkaline pastures, meadows and smaller and larger wetlands (mostly marshes), which has presented ideal conditions for pastoralism since prehistoric times and which existed before the appearance of large animal-breeding cultures.

Today the region is also economically important as an international tourist destination, which draws upon notions of Hungarian national identity through referencing the legacy of horse husbandry and nomadic cultures that once existed across the puszta.

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