Pannonian Basin

thumb|Geographic map of the Carpathian and Pannonian Basin in Central Europe

thumb|The Carpathian and Pannonian Basins

The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin is a large, mainly lowland area in southeastern Central Europe, briefly described as a sedimentary basin. It was the core territory of the historical Kingdom of Hungary.

Under the geopolitically changed conditions created by World War I and the ensuing Treaty of Trianon, the geomorphological term Pannonian Plain was also used for roughly the same region, referring to the lowlands in the area occupied by the Pannonian Sea during the Pliocene. However, Hungarian geographers consider the term "Pannonian Plain" not only unhistorical but also topographically highly erroneous. Regarding the name as such, they are arguing in terms of ancient history, namely that the northern and eastern boundary line of the namesake Roman province of Pannonia was formed by the River Danube, thus the Great Hungarian Plain was not part of the original Pannonia province.

Situated at the westernmost end of the Eurasian Steppe, the Carpathian Basin historically served as a settlement zone for various peoples migrating westward across the Steppe, including the Huns, Avars and Magyars, and later groups such as the Pechenegs and Cumans.

Boundaries

thumb|Satellite map of the Carpathian and Pannonian Basin in Central Europe

The plain or basin and its area are defined differently by different schools of thought, sometimes motivated by national agendas.right|thumb|The [[Danube-Tisa-Danube Canal near the village of Rumenka, close to Novi Sad]]

Wider definition

According to one definition, it forms a topographically discrete unit set in the European landscape, surrounded by geographic boundaries: the Carpathian Mountains to the north and east, the Dinaric Alps to the south and southwest, and the Alps to the west. The Transdanubian Mountains diagonally bisect it, separating the larger Great Hungarian Plain with the Eastern Slovak Lowland, from the Little Hungarian Plain to the northwest. The plain is also associated with the Pannonian Steppe.

In terms of modern state boundaries, this definition of the Pannonian Basin centres it on the territory of Hungary, which lies entirely within the basin, but it also covers parts of southern Slovakia, southeast Poland, western-southwest Ukraine, parts of western Romania, depends on one's approach), northern Serbia, northeast Croatia, northeast Slovenia, and eastern Austria.

Narrower definition

right|thumb|A farm on the [[Hortobágy National Park]]Others exclude from this term the outlaying areas, such as the Transylvanian Plain.

Terminology

The term Pannonian Plain refers to the lowland parts of the Pannonian Basin as well as those of some adjoining regions like Lower Austria, Moravia, and Silesia (Czech Republic and Poland). The lands adjoining the plain proper are sometimes also called peri-Pannonian.

In English language, the terms "Pannonian Basin" and "Carpathian Basin" may sometimes be used synonymously, although the latter holds an irredentist Hungarian connotation.

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, as only the western part of the territory (known as Transdanubia) of modern Hungary formed part of the ancient Pannonia, while the Great Hungarian Plain was not part of it:

The term Carpathian Basin is used in Hungarian literature,

Carpathians

The name "Carpates" is highly associated with the old Dacian tribes called "Carpes" or "Carpi" who lived in a large area from the east, northeast of the Black Sea to the Transylvanian Plain in present day Romania and Moldova. The name Carpates may ultimately be from the Proto Indo-European root *sker-/*ker-, which meant mountain, rock, or rugged (cf. Germanic root *skerp-, Old Norse "harrow", Gothic skarpo, Middle Low German scharf "potsherd", and Modern High German Scherbe "shard", Old English and English sharp, Lithuanian kar~pas "cut, hack, notch", Latvian cìrpt "to shear, clip").

The archaic Polish word karpa meant 'rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, rugged roots, or trunks'. The more common word skarpa means a sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. The name may instead come from Indo-European * 'to turn', akin to Old English 'to turn, change' (English warp) and Greek 'wrist', perhaps referring to the way the mountain range bends or veers in an L-shape.

For the scarcity of natural resources encountered by the early settlers, see also Prehistory.

Geomorphology

The Pannonian Basin is a geomorphological subsystem of the Alps-Himalaya system, specifically a sediment-filled back-arc basin which spread apart during the Miocene.

The Pannonian plain is divided into two parts along the Transdanubian Mountains (Hungarian: Dunántúli-középhegység). The northwestern part is called Western Pannonian plain (or province) and the southeastern part Eastern Pannonian plain (or province). They comprise the following sections:

Western Pannonian Plain (province):
Vienna Basin
Little Hungarian Plain
Eastern Pannonian Plain (province):
Great Hungarian Plain
Pannonian Island Mountains ()
Transdanubian Mountains (Hungarian: Dunántúli-középhegység)
Drava–Mura lowlands

Note: The Transylvanian Plateau and the Lučenec-Košice Depression (both parts of the Carpathians) and some other lowlands are sometimes also considered part of the Pannonian Plain in non-geomorphological or older divisions.

Regions

Relatively large or distinctive areas of the plain that do not necessarily correspond to national borders include:

Bačka/Bácska (Serbia, Hungary)
Šajkaška (Serbia)
Telečka (Serbia)
Gornji Breg (Serbia)
Banat (Romania, Serbia, Hungary)
Pančevački Rit (Serbia)
Veliki Rit (Serbia)
Gornje Livade (Serbia)
Baranya/Baranja (Hungary, Croatia)
Burgenland (Neusiedler Basin), Austria
Crişana (Hungary, Romania)
Great Hungarian Plain (Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine)
Jászság (Hungary)
Kunság (Hungary)
Little Hungarian Plain (Kisalföld/Malá dunajská kotlina – Hungary, Slovakia)
Mačva (Serbia)
Međimurje (Croatia)
Moravia (part), Czech Republic
Moslavina (Croatia)
Podravina (Croatia, Hungary, around Drava river)
Podunavlje (Serbia, Croatia, around Danube river)
Pokuplje (Croatia, around Kupa river)
Pomoravlje (part), Serbia, around Morava river
Pomorišje (Romania, Hungary, Serbia, around Mureș river)
Posavina (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, around Sava river)
Potisje (Serbia, around Tisa river)
Prekmurje (Slovenia)
Semberija (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Slavonia (Croatia)
Palača (Croatia)
Srem/Srijem (Serbia, Croatia)
Podlužje (Serbia)
Šokadija (Croatia)
Spačva (Croatia, Serbia)
Cvelferija (Croatia)
Zakarpattia Lowland (Ukraine)
Transdanubia (Hungary)
Vienna Basin (part), Austria
Vojvodina (Serbia)
several more inside Hungary, see: Counties of Hungary, Regions of Hungary
several more inside Slovakia, see: Traditional regions of Slovakia, Regions of Slovakia

History

Prehistory

For its early settlers, the plain offered few sources of metals or stone. When archaeologists come upon objects of obsidian or chert, copper or gold, they have almost unparalleled opportunities to interpret ancient pathways of trade.

Antiquity

Various different peoples inhabited the plain during its history. In the first century BC, the eastern parts of the plain belonged to the Dacian state, and in the first century AD its western parts were subsumed into the Roman Empire. The Roman province named Pannonia was established in the area, and the city of Sirmium, today Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia, became one of the four capital cities of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century.

Middle Ages

In the Age of Migrations and the early Middle Ages, the region belonged to several realms such as the Hun Empire, the Kingdom of the Gepids, the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, the Kingdom of the Lombards, the Avar Khaganate, the West Slavic state of Samo, the Bulgarian Empire, the Frankish Empire, Great Moravia, the Lower Pannonian Principality and the Kingdom of Syrmia. The Principality of Hungary established in 895 by the Magyars was centered on the plain and included almost all of it (as did the former Avar Khaganate). It was established as the Catholic Kingdom of Hungary in AD 1000, with the coronation of Stephen I of Hungary.

thumb|210px|Cattle herders in the puszta of Hungary,

The Kingdom of Hungary by the 11th century comprised the entire Pannonian Basin, but the changing fates of this part of Europe during the Ottoman wars of the 14th to 17th centuries left the Pannonian basin divided between numerous political entities. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the central and eastern regions of the kingdom and the plain on which they lay were incorporated into the Ottoman Empire, while the remainder to the north-west was subsumed into the holdings of the Habsburg monarchy and retitled Royal Hungary. Under Ottoman administration, the plain was reorganised into the Eyalet of Budim, the Eyalet of Egri, the Eyalet of Sigetvar and the Eyalet of Temeşvar.

Modern history

The Pannonian Plain was frequently a scene of conflict between the two empires. At the end of the 17th century the Habsburgs won decisive battles against the Ottomans, and most of the plain gradually came under Habsburg rule. Under Habsburg rule the region was eventually reorganised into the Kingdom of Hungary, the Banat of Temeswar, the Military Frontier, the Kingdom of Croatia, the Kingdom of Slavonia and Voivodeship of Serbia and Temes Banat.

The Habsburg Monarchy was subsequently transformed into the Austrian Empire (in 1804) and later became Austria-Hungary (in 1867). Most of the plain was located within the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, since all other Habsburg possessions in the plain were integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary until 1882. The autonomous Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, which was one of the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, comprised the south-western portion of the plain.

With the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after World War I, the region was divided between Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Austria and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed to Yugoslavia in 1929). The borders drawn in 1918 and 1919 are mostly preserved as those of the contemporary states of Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia, and Romania.

Major cities

This is a list of cities in the Pannonian Basin with a population larger than 100,000 within the city proper:

Vienna Austria (2,002,821)
Budapest Hungary (1,750,268)
Belgrade Serbia (1,166,763)
Zagreb Croatia (812,635)
Bratislava Slovakia (546,300)
Timișoara Romania (319,279 )
Novi Sad Serbia (306,702)
Košice Slovakia (240,688)
Debrecen Hungary (204,333)
Oradea Romania (196,367)
Miskolc Hungary (162,905)
Szeged Hungary (161,837)
Arad Romania (159,704)
Pécs Hungary (147,719)
Győr Hungary (128,567)
Nyíregyháza Hungary (118,185)
Uzhhorod Ukraine (115,163)
Kecskemét Hungary (111,863)
Osijek Croatia (108,048)
Subotica Serbia (105,681)
Satu Mare Romania (102,441)