Тárnok is a large village in Pest County,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

located 23.3 kilometers from

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. The Benta Creek runs through the village. It has a population of 10,488 people. Located between and the M7 motorway, the Nr. 30 Budapest–Murakeresztúr railway line runs through the village, supporting its railway station and public transport.

History

The area of the settlement has been constantly inhabited since

prehistoric times Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

, due to its favorable geographical features. Survived stone debris,

gravestone A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The us ...

s, dish and sculpture fragments,

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...

, tegula,

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

, glass

bead A bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood, or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under 1 ...

s and

jug A jug is a type of container commonly used to hold and serve liquids, but not normally to drink from directly. It has an opening, sometimes narrow, from which to pour or drink, and has a handle, and usually a pouring lip. Jugs throughout histor ...

s gave evidence for the existence of

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

er hunting camps, a

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

cemetery and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

residential houses. The Romans began

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

ing in the area. In the year 381, there was a clash between the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

and the Romans according to the

Chronicon Pictum The ''Chronicon Pictum'' or ''Illuminated Chronicle'' (, , , also referred to as the ''Illustrated Chronicle'', ''Chronica Hungarorum'', ''Chronicon Hungarie Pictum'', ''Chronica Picta'' or ''Chronica de Gestis Hungarorum'') is a medieval illust ...

. 8th century cemeteries revealed human skeletons, ancient

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

s and animal bones. The name of the settlement was first mentioned around 1250 as ''Tavarnuk'', which meant 'The Queen's Estate'. Later sources referred the quaint village as ''Tawarnucweg, Taarnuk, Tharnok and Tharnuk''. These names may have referred to the merchants, who made up the majority of the population. King Ladislaus IV donated it to the nuns of

Margaret Island Margaret Island ( ; ) is a long island, wide, ( in area) in the middle of the Danube in central Budapest, Hungary. The island is mostly covered by landscape parks, and is a popular recreational area. Its medieval ruins are reminders of its impo ...

. The settlement was destroyed by the

Ottomans Ottoman may refer to: * Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire * Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II" * Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...

in the 1540s and was only populated again in the 18th century with

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

, Slovak and Hungarian families. The

Our Lady of the Rosary Our Lady of the Rosary (), also known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, is a Titles of Mary, Marian title. The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, formerly known as Feast of Our Lady of Victory and Feast of the Holy Rosary is celebrated on 7 October ...

Church built in 1737. bought the area in 1832, but after 1849 it was acquired by

Georgios Sinas Georgios Sinas (, ; 20 November 1783 – 18 May 1856) was an Austrian-Greek entrepreneur and banker. He became a national benefactor of Greece and was the father of another Greek national benefactor, Simon Sinas. He was also the founder of the N ...

, and later became the property of the

Károlyi The House of Károlyi is the name of an old and prominent Hungarian nobility, Hungarian noble family, whose members held the title of Count in Kingdom of Hungary, Hungary, awarded to them on 5 April 1712 by Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor. They clai ...

family. Tárnok was sold by in 1913 to Sándor Nagy de Üszög. He built a lavish castle, which put him under excessive debt, leading him to sell part of the area to István Zoltán Juhász 1941, who left the country in 1944. The village population primarily relied on animal husbandry for their livelihood – in 1911, there were 290 families in the settlement, tending to pigs, cows and horses. The village possessed its own train station, hotel, post office and school by the 1930s.

Demographics

According the 2022 census, 89.0% of the population were of Hungarian ethnicity, 1.0% were

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

, 0.7% were

Slovaks The Slovaks ( (historical Sloveni ), singular: ''Slovák'' (historical: ''Sloven'' ), feminine: ''Slovenka'' , plural: ''Slovenky'') are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation native to Slovakia who share a common ancestry, culture, history ...

and 10.8% were did not wish to answer. The religious distribution was as follows: 22.7%

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, 7.9%

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

, 1.1%

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

, 1.1%

Greek Catholic Greek Catholic Church or Byzantine-Catholic Church may refer to: * The Catholic Church in Greece * The Eastern Catholic Churches The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Ea ...

18.6% non-denominational, and 46.1% did not wish to answer. 301 residents live in ''Margitliget'' and other inner areas while 722 people live on Grape Hill and 166 individuals reside beside the lake, in temporary accommodations, leaving the last 30 people, who live in 3 farms. The

have a local nationality government. Population by years:

Politics

''Mayors since 1990'': * 1990–1998: Andor Rozbora ( MDF, independent after 1994) * 1998–2006: István Gergely (Independent) * 2006–2019: Gábor Károly Szolnoki (

Fidesz–KDNP Fidesz–KDNP Party Alliance (), formerly also known as the Alliance of Hungarian Solidarity (), is a right-wing national conservative political alliance of two political parties in Hungary, the Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz) and ...

, supported by the OTVSZ since 2010) * 2019–: László Lukács (Independent)

Public Safety

The biggest issue regarding public safety is illegal waste dumping, followed by private property, garden and bicycle thefts. These issues are mostly concentrated in the outskirts of the village. The settlement has its own police office. Unknown bad-actors broke into the infamous singer,

Sarolta Zalatnay Sarolta Zalatnay (born Charlotte Sacher in Budapest, Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Ro ...

's house in June 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tarnok Populated places in Pest County