Pusztaszabolcs

Pusztaszabolcs
Town
Aerial view
Coat of arms
Location of Fejér county in Hungary
Pusztaszabolcs Location of Pusztaszabolcs
Coordinates: 47°08′29″N 18°45′34″E / 47.14127°N 18.75940°E / 47.14127; 18.75940
Country	Hungary
County	Fejér
District	Dunaújváros
Area
• Total	51.67 km^2 (19.95 sq mi)
Population  (2015)
• Total	5,904[1]
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal code	2490
Area code	(+36) 25
Website	www.pusztaszabolcs.hu

Pusztaszabolcs is a town in Fejér County, Hungary. Flanked by the loess fields of the Mezőföld and the Danube back-swamps, Pusztaszabolcs occupies 51.7 km² (20.0 sq mi) at the junction of three main railway corridors—Budapest–Pécs, Székesfehérvár–Paks and the freight cut-off to Dunaújváros.^[2]

History

Although first attested as Zabolch in a 1270 charter, the modern settlement coalesced only after 1861, when the Southern State Railway opened a station on the freshly laid Budapest–Zimony line; within a decade trackside plots were selling for twice the price of the surrounding cropland.^[3] Rail employment, grain warehousing and a sugar-beet press boosted head-count from 642 in 1870 to 5,904 by 2015, and the 2022 census records a further rise to 6,134 residents, two-thirds of whom commute daily to Dunaújváros steelworks or Székesfehérvár electronics plants.^[4]

Landmarks

The town centre is anchored by two contrasting churches: the single-nave Roman Catholic Church of the Visitation (1834, Copf-style façade and Empire altar), enlarged after the 1863 cholera epidemic, and the Reformed church (1928), whose square brick tower mirrors inter-war Calvinist architecture across Fejér. Between them stands a First-World-War stele by sculptor Lajos Berán, while the small open-air railway museum beside the station preserves a 1942-built MÁV 375 steam locomotive—a type once synonymous with branch-line traffic in Transdanubia. An autumn railway open-house forms part of the town's annual event calendar.^[3]

Transport

Since 2018 the municipality has capitalised on its transport node: an EU-funded project electrified and doubled 55 km of track between Pusztaszabolcs and Százhalombatta, replaced the century-old lattice footbridge with lifts and glazed walkways, and built a 300-space park-and-ride intended to shift commuter traffic off Highway 6. Parallel investments laid a 23-km cycleway that ties the town into the Lake Velence loop and the Danube EuroVelo 6 spur.^[2]

Twin towns – sister cities

Pusztaszabolcs is twinned with:

• Staufenberg, Germany
• Dorobanți, Romania

Gallery

• 
  First World War monument
• 
  Map of Pusztaszabolcs from the First Military Mapping Survey of the Austrian Empire.
• 
  Map of Pusztaszabolcs from the Second Military Mapping Survey of the Austrian Empire.
• 
  Map of Pusztaszabolcs from the Third Military Mapping Survey of the Austrian Empire.

References

1. Gazetteer of Hungary, 1 January 2015. Hungarian Central Statistical Office.
2. "Átadták a villamosított Százhalombatta–Pusztaszabolcs vasútvonalat" [Electrified Százhalombatta–Pusztaszabolcs line inaugurated]. MÁV-START Zrt. 3 December 2022. Retrieved 30 April 2025.
3. "Pusztaszabolcs város története és nevezetességei" [History and sights of the town of Pusztaszabolcs]. Pusztaszabolcs Municipality. 2025. Retrieved 30 April 2025.
4. "Pusztaszabolcs – Population Census 2022". CityPopulation.de – data from Hungarian Central Statistical Office. 26 September 2023. Retrieved 30 April 2025.

External links

• Official website in Hungarian
• Street map (in Hungarian)