Magyarország gazdasági központjainak pozícióváltozása 1992 és 2011 között
Position Change of Economic Centres in Hungary in the Period Between 1992–2011

Summary/Abstract: Nowadays a very popular trend of social scientific research on cities deals with what role cities play in the economy. In these researches conclusions are often drawn on the impact of directing and controlling function of cities on the economy through the financial performance of multinational/transnational companies and banks. Namely their changes are in cause-effect association with the actual economic processes. In the present paper the author identifies and ranks Hungarian economic centres in the period between 1992–2011 by means of a method applied in international practice. In consequence of economic processes following the change of regime, accession to the European Union and due to some special taxation regulations specific of Hungary, the position of settlements changed within the economic system. After two decades of transition period the dominance of the capital and its conurbation significantly increased, east-westerly dichotomy became stronger, while the role of traditional industrial centres and of some large cities with complex economic structure weakened. As a result of these processes new type economic centres evolved, which got into outstanding position due to only one economically determinant company. Extreme case is represented by inland tax-free ports, which became leading economic centres due to the offshore activity of international multinational companies. The aim of this paper is to create a settlement classification, which is based on the dynamically changing position of settlements in the economy, and reflects economic processes after the change of the regime with all their anomalies.

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