Budapest is the capital of Hungary, and is the industrial, commercial, and cultural center of the country. The city is situated on the Danube River, in the geographic center of the region. With the compromise between Hungary and Austria in 1867, a period of economic prosperity and a population growth of enormous speed began. In 1869 the three towns (Buda, Pest, and Óbuda) that were to be united four years later into Budapest had 280, 349 inhabitants. At the turn of the century, Budapest already had a population of 733,350. In 1871 the first international competition in urban development was announced to restructure the capital. Its program underlined the importance of the Chain Bridge as the central connection between Buda and Pest. A system of boulevards and avenues was realized as the result of the competition and subsequent revisions, and the urban structure of Budapest today is determined by the largescale realization of what was probably the most consistent attempt to create a bourgeois city in Europe.
