In those eight states there are only as many persons considering themselves of Hungarian nationality as the population of the Republic of Hungary was in 1990. Data of the latest censuses show that in 2011 there were only 10.4 million Hungarians in the territory of the former “historical Hungary”. The figure is by 2.4 million lower than 13 million, which was the number of Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin in 1990.

In Transylvania (6.8 million residents) three-fourths of the population consider themselves Romanian while the ratio of ethnic Hungarians dropped to 19 percent. Between 2002 and 2011 the number of ethnic Hungarians fell from 70 000 to 57 000 in Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely), from 60 000 to 49 000 in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), and from 57 000 to 45 000 in Oradea (Nagyvárad). The decrease of the number of ethnic Hungarians was even steeper in Arad, Timișoara (Temesvár) and Baia Mare (Nagybánya), where the most recent figures are 16 000, 16 000 and 14 000. The ratio of Hungarians was the highest in Târgu Mureş: 45 percent and the lowest in Timișoara: 5 percent.

Of the 16 historical counties of Transylvania, one of the hardest hit by decrease in the ratio of ethnic Hungarians was the third county of Szekler Land: Maros. In one decade the ratio plummeted by 24.9 percent. In that county Romanians account for 52.6 percent, ethnic Hungarians 38.1 percent and other nationalities for the rest.

In two other counties of Szekler Land that lie further away from the mother country, the nationality set up underwent less change. In Kovászna the Romanian–Hungarian ratio is 73.7:22.1 and in Hargita 85.2:13.0. Those data are from a Romanian census, whose final data were published a few months ago. Preliminary data of that census were published in 2012 and the final data tend to be unfavorable towards the ethnic Hungarians. To illustrate the magnitude of retrospective adjustment, in 2012 the population of Romania was said to be 19 million and, “unexpectedly” the figure rose to 20.1 million. The data are from an article by Balázs Kapitány, who published them in Demography, the journal of the Demographic Research Institute of the Central Statistical Office (NKI).

In Transylvania as a whole what Kapitány calls a “catastrophic” decrease in the ratio of ethnic Hungarians continued. The decline was “only” 6 percent in Harghita county but it reached or surpassed 25 percent in the historical counties of Arad, Krassó–Szörény, Hunyad, Szeben and Temes. In those areas the ethnic Hungarians are spread out thin, and even their gradual disappearance cannot be ruled out, Kapitány writes. Amid such dramatic changes, three-quarters of the ethnic Hungarians – are concentrated in an area of only 33 000 sq km and having 2.2 million residents in all. The historical counties in that are Hargita, Kovászna, Maros, Szilágy, and Szatmár and Bihar.

In Slovakia (population: 5.4 million) the number of ethnic Hungarians has fallen by 109 000 since 1990 while the population of the country increased by 123 000. In 2011 the size of the ethnic Hungarians community didn’t reach half a million – which is seen as a psychological frontier. In 1921, 651 000 persons considered themselves of Hungarian nationality there. (At that time their ratio was 21.7 percent.) In 2011 the number was just 458 000 or 8.5 percent.

Experts say assimilation is the main cause of the shrinkage in Slovakia. Four-fifths of children born in Hungarian–Slovak mixed marriages later tell they belonged to the majority nation – sociologist László Gyurgyík says.

In the past ten years in Voivodina the number of ethnic Hungarians decreased by 39 000, in Sub-Carpathia by 11 000, in Croatia and Slovenia by 1500 each, but in Burgenland there was an increase of 3500.

The number of ethnic Hungarians decreased on average by about 13 percent or by 314 000 in ten years in the seven countries around Hungary. That is dwarfed by a decrease of 1.1 million in the size of the population of the mother country between 2001 and 2011.

At the most latest census, of the 9.9 million residents of Hungary, only 8.3 million said that they belong to the majority nation. (Some observers consider that as an expression of political protest.) About half a million respondents indicated that they belong to other nationalities. Hungarian demographers are still trying to find out the nationality of the 1.1 million persons, most of them living in Hungary, whose mother tongue tends to be Hungarian and who tend to communicate with family and friends in Hungarian.

When demographers divided among the nationalities in the Carpathian Basin the number of those respondents who remained silent about their nationality affiliation in proportion to those disclosing their nationality, they arrived at the conclusion that the size of the Hungarian-speaking population in the Carpathian Basin is about 12 million.

Source: HVG

Translated by Budapest Telegraph