Győr

Celts founded the first large settlement here in the 5th century BC and called it Ara Bona, "good altar", later Arrabona — a name that survives in the German Raab. Roman merchants arrived in the 1st century BC and the Roman army soon after, and the town lived on after the Romans withdrew in the 4th century, passing to Slavs, Lombards, Avars and Great Moravia. The Magyars took and refortified the Roman fort around 900, and King Stephen I founded a bishopric here. Mongols occupied the town in 1241–42, and a Czech army destroyed it in 1271.

After Mohács, Győr became a frontier fortress. When the Ottomans advanced, its commander Kristóf Lamberg burned the town rather than defend it, and the Turks named the ruins "burnt castle". It was rebuilt within new walls by Italian military engineers, but in 1594 the Ottomans took it, holding it until 1598. The following centuries brought prosperity: Maria Theresa made it a free royal town in 1743, and Jesuits and Carmelites built churches, schools and a hospital. On 14 June 1809 Napoleon's forces won the Battle of Raab here and blew up part of the walls.

Danube steamships made it a trading centre in the mid-19th century until the railway took the traffic after 1861, and industry replaced trade. Bombing in the Second World War targeted the Rába works, which built tanks and aircraft, and the Jewish community was almost destroyed. In 1956 Győr was called the second capital of the revolution. Restoration of the neglected old town began in the 1970s, winning a European heritage award in 1989.

Győr is called the baroque city for the dozens of 18th-century buildings, churches and statues in its old town, and the city of rivers for the waterways that meet around it. The cathedral keeps the reliquary bust of King Ladislaus I, one of the most important relics for Hungarians, and its image of the Virgin draws pilgrims every year, and the Benedictines, Carmelites and Ursulines left a string of baroque churches. Across the Rába, Újváros holds churches of five faiths, among them the synagogue, celebrated each year in a five-day festival of religious, musical and cultural traditions.

Sport is the city's great passion, and handball comes first. Győri ETO KC, the women's team, has won 19 Hungarian titles and the Champions League seven times, most recently in 2024 and 2025, and reached the final again in 2026; its home is the Audi Aréna. Győri ETO's footballers play in the top division at ETO Park, and the men's handball team also plays in the top flight.

The National Theatre, opened in 1978 with ceramic decoration by Victor Vasarely, is the city's main stage, and the city's arts and festival centre occupies a baroque palace in the old town. The engineering university, linked closely with Audi, gives the centre a student population.

About 130,000 people live in Győr, which counted 129,527 at the 2011 census, making it the sixth-largest city in Hungary and the capital of Győr-Moson-Sopron county. Its population doubled after the Second World War through migration from the countryside and the absorption of surrounding villages such as Révfalu, Sziget and Ménfőcsanak. Socialist-era housing estates such as Marcalváros spread beyond the old town, while Révfalu, with its houses and gardens, is the district many locals would most like to live in.

Audi dominates the economy. Its factory, opened in 1994, assembles cars and builds over 90 per cent of the engines for Audi vehicles, as well as engines for other Volkswagen Group brands, and a 12 MW solar roof was added by 2020. Suppliers, research centres and the Széchenyi István University, with its close links to Audi, are part of the same web, and the port of Győr-Gönyű handles Danube freight.

Since 2000 the city has renovated its squares, built bridges, parking garages and a thermal bath, and introduced a free downtown bus. The old Rába factory site beside the river is being turned into a new mixed district, Városrét, with homes, schools and parks.

Győr eats from the national table. Restaurants in the old town serve gulyás, properly a brothy soup of beef, potato and paprika; pörkölt, the thicker paprika stew; chicken paprikás with nokedli dumplings and sour cream; and palacsinta, thin pancakes served sweet or savoury. Halászlé, the hot fisherman's soup, has rival versions along Hungary's rivers; the buffets at the market hall serve roast meat and fish meals.

The covered market hall on Herman Ottó utca is the place for produce, and the small flower market behind the Carmelite church opens every morning. Around the main Christian holidays, markets spread across the old-town squares and along Baross Gábor and Arany János streets.

Wine comes from the surrounding hills and from the wider country: the Benedictines of Pannonhalma, on their hill south of the city, still make wine, and bars in the old town pour bottles from Hungary's leading regions. Cafés on the old-town squares, some in 18th-century houses, are the city's meeting places.