The City

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Thanks to its favourable geographical location, Szeged connects the European Union with the countries along the southern borderline. Szeged is located at the crossroads of national and Trans-European transport corridors. These corridors link the West with the South, Berlin with the Adriatic Sea, the Balkans, the Middle-East, and Asia Minor here in Szeged.

Szeged has excellent transport background: it lies close to the Serbian-Romanian-Hungarian triple border. It is easy to reach Szeged by road, rail, air or water. The city is located 170 kms from Budapest, lying on one of the most important Trans-European transport corridor from Western Europe to the South and Southeast, at the intersection of M5 and M43 Motorways.

Being one of the centres of the Danube-Koros-Maros-Tisza Euroregion, Szeged has a significant coordinating role in the Hungarian- Romanian-Serbian cooperation. The area’s total population of 4 million 400 thousand significantly extends the authority of Szeged.

Close to the Serbian-Romanian-Hungarian triple border, Szeged is one of the south-eastern gates of the European Union. Its location, advanced infrastructure and service sector, high level education and its well-qualified labour force with foreign language skills make the city an attractive location for investors from the knowledge-intensive sectors.

Distance from other cities: Budapest 170 km, Belgrade 220 km, Vienna 410 km, Berlin 1050 km, Prague 690 km, m, Rome 1.380 km, Munich 900 km.

Szeged is in the top 3 cities in the survey comparing the development level of Hungarian county seats.

Szeged

Szeged is located in the South-Eastern part of Hungary, in Central Europe.

Szeged is the third most populated city in Hungary. It is the economic, scientific and cultural centre of the southern Great Plain region, a Europe Prize Winner City.

Area: 281 km²
Population: 162,621

The second biggest river in Hungary, the Tisza, flows through the city, meeting the River Maros here. The city is located 8 kms (5 miles) from the Serbian border, and 18 kms (11 miles) from the Romanian border. Szeged is a city of County Rank, the seat of Csongrád-Csanád County and the Szeged District.

Szeged provides favourable urban environment for its inhabitants and visitors alike, thanks to its

• high level urban services
• favourable housing environment
• good transport background
• high level education
• vivid cultural programmes
• tolerant social environment and
• a high level of safety.

University City

Almost 25 thousand university students and 15 thousand secondary-school students are trained in Szeged with nearly 170 thousand inhabitants. The city offers excellent international training courses: students can continue their studies in English, German, French and Spanish at the university and at dual language schools.

Important Scientific Centre

Besides being a university city, Szeged is also an important scientific centre, it is the Southern Hungarian ’citadel’ of basic and applied research projects. Not only the ’University of Excellence’ title holder University of Szeged and the Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences are located in Szeged but also the official residences of the Biotechnological Research Institute at the Bay Zoltán Non-profit Ltd. for Applied Research and the Cereal Research Non-Profit Ltd.

As the scientific top priority project of the European Union, the ELI-ALPS laser research centre has been implemented in Szeged. It provides laser sources and the created unique combination of light and particle pulses for end-users arriving from the fields of scientific research and industrial applications. Start-up businesses using the results of the laser research centre and successful companies appealed by the city’s inspirational environment are welcomed in the planned scientific industrial park (Science Park) next to the ELI-ALPS. As the scientific investment of the European Union, the Hungarian Centre of Excellence for Molecular Medicine (HCEMM-MOLMEDEX) will operate in the Science Park, too. It is set to diagnose widespread heart, vascular system, cancer or inflamed diseases. An automotive competence centre may be established here in cooperation with the university in Kecskemét. The first institutions may open in 2019.

These institutions with advanced scientific and research activities have wide international relations. Local researchers have achieved outstanding results in several scientific fields (e.g. biochemistry, biophysics, laser research), their research activity means an exceptional innovation potential for companies planning business utilisation.

Economic Advantages

Szeged is one of the south-eastern gates of the European Union. Its location, advanced infrastructure and service sector, high level education and its well-qualified labour force with foreign language skills make the city an attractive location for investors from the knowledge-intensive sectors. The management of the city waits investors with flexible and quick administration, established and modern public utility network, furthermore with services easing recruitment and incentives promoting employment creation.

Vivid Cultural Life, Attractive Urban Environment

Szeged is ’the city of sunlight’, its nice, almost Mediterranean climate and vivid cultural life make the city a great place to live. The Europa Nostra Awarded, eclectic style city centre and the promenade on the river bank attract people for pleasant walks.

Hospitable City of Human Scale

Szeged is full of young people making life vivid and lively. Several cultural events (e.g. Szeged Open-Air Festival, Szeged Day, the Youth Days of Szeged), gastronomic events (e.g. Wine Festival, Hungarikum Festival) and international sports events (e.g. kayak-canoe world championships, water-polo and handball championships) await people.

Where good to be, where good to eat
Gastronomic-festivals: www.szegedtourism.hu

Magic atmosphere under the sky
Szeged Open-Air Festival: www.szegediszabadteri.hu

Szeged turns into a pop music festival centre for a week in the summer
The Youth Days of Szeged: www.szin.org

A national survey in 2012 and a local one in 2013 asked the opinion of the inhabitants on the presence of foreign-owned companies. Both surveys showed that the majority of the inhabitants formed a tolerant and receptive community.

2012 omnibus (country)

2013 Szeged

High Quality Services

Advanced public transport network, excellent safety, high level educational and health care services, thermal and wellness bathing facilities, good restaurants, several leisure and recreational programmes make Szeged a great place to live.

Urban Services

Szeged is dedicated to build such an urban and natural environment that supports all forms of recreation. The Europa Nostra Award was given to the city for the city centre renewal in 2003. As the first Hungarian town, the 2006 Europe Prize was awarded to Szeged for its actions in the European domain by the Council of Europe. The European Climate Foundation awarded a prize to the city for environmentally friendly urban developments in 2009.

Health Care

As the regional health care centre, Szeged is responsible for patient care in the region. One of the largest outpatient clinics in Hungary is in Szeged, together with several private clinics, thus providing a high quality patient care.

67 GPs, 33 paediatricians and 34 dentists provide basic health care services. The patient care districts cover the whole area of the city.

The new, 36-bed casualty department of the Albert Szent-Györgyi Health Centre was built from HUF 1.2 billion in 2012. The construction of the new 265-bed clinic wing of the University of Szeged was completed at the beginning of 2015, together with significant new medical instrument procurement.

32 clinics and institutions provide basic and special medical care at 28 places on 1800 beds in the Albert Szent-Györgyi Health Centre. The school consulting rooms operate at several places in the city.

The system of pay health care services is also established in the city. Several private clinics, numerous private medical practitioners wait patients by appointment.

Data on patient numbers in hospital care (in 2016):

• Patients receiving active hospital care – 79,020
• Patients receiving cure type care – 10,489
• Daytime hospital care – 779
• Patients receiving chronic and rehabilitation care – 3,925

Data on outpatient treatment numbers (in 2016):

• Outpatient number – 2,717,523

Accommodation

Wide range of accommodation is offered to people visiting Szeged. Based on their tastes, visitors can stay at well-established or brand new, four star hotels, elegant pensions or cosy guesthouses.

The outstanding wellness, medical, conference and spa hotels offer relaxation and recreation for every age group. Several four star hotels await visitors with sophisticated hotel service demands.

Web: www.szegedtourism.hu 

Banks

The following financial institutions operate branch offices in Szeged:

Public Transport

The city aims to develop sustainable means of transport, including bicycle and public transport. The city has a well-built public transport network, timetables of buses, trams and trolleys are well balanced. Free wifi service is available on all buses, trams and trolleys. Besides public transport, the city considers important to develop safe bike transport supporting infrastructure. The objective of these developments is to create a sustainable and attractive transport system, offering a viable alternative to private car usage in the long run.

Free Time & Cultura

The vivid life of Szeged

The thermal water of Szeged provided a unique opportunity to establish a therapeutic and bathing culture with rich variety. One of Szeged’s outstanding resources is the water of the Anna and Dóra Wells rated as medicinal spring water. Now the water of the Anna well is used primarily for bathing in the renowned and refurbished Anna Spa, where a balneotherapy centre has been established. Szeged is a true bathing city with its bathing facilities and hotels with services for medical tourism. A 6 billion HUF investment in the bathing centre next to the River Tisza was based on the thermal resources of the city. Thanks to this development, a modern bathing complex was established with medical, wellness, recreational and sports facilities. The city also has quality infrastructure for water sports, where full house is expected during sports events. The kayak-canoe and rowing sports centre called Count István Széchenyi on the Maty stream has become well-known all over the world as the location of several European and world championships.

Szeged Zoo

Szeged Zoo has the largest area in the country among zoos, it lies on a 43-hectare (106-acre) national park with forests and lakes. Szeged Zoo welcomes its visitors all year around. The other well-established pride of Szeged, the Botanical Garden established in 1921 by the University of Szeged offers nice programmes to nature lovers.

Indoor Swimming Pool on Etelka sor

The indoor swimming pool on Etelka sor is going to be finished by 2019. It will have four pools (one competition pool, one training pool, one learner pool and one outdoor-indoor seating pool). Through providing better access for PE (physical education) and swimming lessons, and through satisfying the increasing demands of inhabitants for swimming, the conditions for preserving people’s health will improve significantly in the city. The conditions for swimming and water polo trainings will also get much better, thus increasing the player base of the long-established water sports in the city.

The modern sports facility fitted with the latest cooling, heating, cleaning systems and solar cell panels will operate economically and will provide advanced services for sportspeople, spectators and employees equally.

Cultural Centre

A wide variety of programmes enrich the cultural life of Szeged. One of the most popular attractions of Szeged is the Open-Air Festival seating 4,000 people with the famous Szeged Dóm as a stage background. Productions attract thousands of visitors from year to year.

Szeged is definitely a European festival city. The flagship of the festivals, the climax of the festival season is the Szeged Open-Air Festival, which celebrated its eighty-sixth season in 2017.

There is an abundance of programmes throughout the year: beer and wine festivals, The Bridge Fair on Szeged Day, Jewish Cultural Festival and several other cultural and gastronomic events.

The Szeged National Theatre with one of the largest budgets in the country has three sections and offers great repertoires. The music life of the city is globally renowned. Besides the theatre, the Music Academy and the Szeged Synagogue, the fourth biggest synagogue in the world await concert-goers.

The literary past of the city is also unique. Its two big libraries, the Somogyi Library and the famous university public collection have been serving public education and scientific work for a long time.

One of the gems of Szeged’s culture is the Regional Arts Centre (REOK) in the Art Nouveau palace. The task of the centre is to show the widest possible portfolio of universal and European culture.

The Ferenc Móra Museum is one of the most visited museums in the country, where excavation, find saving, scientific analysis and publicity activities are performed at an international level. Besides permanent exhibitions, several fine arts exhibitions are organized in this visitor friendly museum.

Szeged’s events attract thousands of visitors into the beautiful and renewed city centre:

• Organ concerts in the Szeged Dóm
• Events on Szeged day
• International folk dance festival
• The youth days of Szeged
• Szeged wine festival
• Church music weeks
• City hall evenings
• Summer exhibition 

Expat life

Szeged offers favourable city environment for its inhabitants and visitors. In addition to its vivid city centre, nice squares, enchanting river, towers reaching the skies and baths tempting to relax, it also offers gastronomic delights. No wonder that the number of foreign students arriving to the university to study is rising from year to year, and the number of expatriates is increasing also through international companies’ settling here.

The Local Government of Szeged of County Rank is making partnerships with the following cities worldwide.

Twin towns of Szeged

• Szabadka (Serbia)
• Liége (Belgium)
• Pula (Croatia)
• Darmstadt (Germany)
• Odessza (Ukraine)
• Marosvásárhely (Romania)
• Turku (Finland)
• Kotor (Montenegro)
• Toledo (Ohio, United States)
• Łódź ( Poland)
• Parma (Italy)
• Cambridge (United Kingdom)
• Rahó (Ukraine)
• Nizza (France)
• Temesvár (Romania)
• Larnaka (Cyprus)
• Weinan (Shaanxi Province, China)

More information: www.szegedtourism.hu/hu/helyek/testvervarosok

The important international organisations operating in the city

Alliance Francaise de Szeged
(Alliance Francaise French Cultural Association in Szeged)
6720 Szeged, Dugonics tér 2.
+36-30/372-3979
szeged@af.org.hu

Centre universitaire francophone de l’Université de Szeged
(Francophone University Centre at the University of Szeged)
Szeged 6720, Dugonics tér 2, Hongrie
+36 30/228- 3530
www2.u-szeged.hu/cuf
The Francophone University Centre at the University of Szeged aims to promote French-speaking training courses and research at the university, to coordinate French-speaking cooperation with international universities and scientific institutions, related governmental and non-governmental institutions, furthermore with Francophone international institutions, and to represent Francophone university activities consistently.

Romanian Cultural Institution
6720 Szeged, Dugonics tér 2.
+36-62/550 321
+36-62/550 320
rki.szeged@invitel.hu
www.icr.ro

House of Ethnic Minorities (Greek, German, Romanian, Slovakian)
6721 Szeged, Osztrovszky u. 6.
+36-62/424-249,
+36-62/424-248
minority@t-online.hu
www.minority-szeged.hu
The Ethnic Minority Association was established in 2000 in order to unite and coordinate the ethnic minority groups (minority self-governments, minority associations and ethnic groups without legal personality) and private persons in Szeged and Csongrád-Csanád County. The founder members were German, Slovakian, Polish, Ukrainian, Armenian and Greek self-governments in Szeged. There are seven minority self-governments and seven minority civil organizations among members today. The priority objectives of the associations include the representation of ethnic minorities of Szeged in the non-profit civil sector.

Confucius Institute at the University of Szeged
6720 Szeged, Dugonics tér 13.
+36-62/544-712
konfuciusz@rekt.szte.hu
www.konfuciuszintezet.u-szeged.hu
The Confucius Institute in Szeged was opened in the autumn of 2012 as a result of the cooperation of the University of Szeged and the Shanghai International Studies University supported by Hanban (Confucius Institute Headquarters). For those interested in learning Chinese as a foreign language, the Institute offers language classes taught by professional Chinese language teachers, also with emphasis on learning the Chinese culture.

International Relations of the University of Szeged

The University of Szeged makes partnership with more than 500 highly ranked universities worldwide. Among the international mobility programmes, the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Union is the most popular, within its framework the University cooperates with 430 partner universities in 31 countries based on 783 bilateral agreements.

More than three thousand international students study at the University of Szeged each academic year.

The University of Szeged has international study programmes for a while: English-speaking study programmes started in health fields 30 years ago, since then there are study programmes for international students in almost all academic fields at all training levels.

More information: www.u-szeged.hu/nemzetkozi-kapcsolatok

Szeged International Primary School

In addition to the dual language primary and secondary schools operating already in the city, this September the Szeged International Primary School was launched, which uses the IPC (International Primary Curriculum) as methodology to develop students’ personality, language skills and academic knowledge.

(The International Primary Curriculum (IPC) is the fastest-growing curriculum in the world today. It is taught in 1,800 schools in 90 countries. The curriculum is designed for 5-12 year olds with 130 exciting, fascinating and worldwide applicable thematic units of learning. It has a clear process of learning with specific learning goals for every subject to focus on a combination of academic, personal and international learning for children.)