The Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) has recently published a detailed set of new census data, according to which a total of 98,000 foreign nationals are currently living in Budapest, Hungary. The capital city of Budapest is by far the most populous city in the country with 1.756 million residents. And, as we just learnt, about 5.6 per cent of them are from other countries, which also makes it a lot more diverse than any other Hungarian town.

The most populous minority of foreigners in Budapest is the Chinese. About 15,000 of them are residing in Budapest currently

—their numbers have doubled in the last decade. The second largest diaspora in the city is that of the Ukrainians. Evidently, their numbers have ballooned up since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with many Ukrainians fleeing to Hungary from the horrors of the war. They have shown about a four-fold increase since then, and there are nearly 14,000 Ukrainians in Budapest as of now. The two largest national minorities make up only 15.2 per cent of the total number of foreign nationals living in the capital, which is a testament to the city’s diversity.

The third largest minority group is the Vietnamese, the population of whom is also on the rise. Meanwhile, the number of people from the neighbouring country of Romania has declined since the last census.

As for their distribution, most foreigners live in central Budapest. The 5th district (Belváros-Lipótváros) and the 6th district (Terézváros) are the two districts most densely populated with immigrants—there, nearly one in four people are foreign nationals.

It is interesting to note that while immigrants from Asia, such as China and Vietnam, tend to favour the Pest side of the capital, the recently arrived Ukrainian migrants prefer to settle in Buda. Overall,

the number of foreign nationals living in Budapest has increased in the decade that has passed since the last census.

On top of the most populous national minorities listed above, there is a significant number, over 1,000, of Italian, Indian, Polish, British, South Korean, and Turkish citizens living in our capital as well. As for nationalities who do not quite hit the 1,000-people mark but are still present in notable numbers are the Iranians, Americans, Mongolians, and Norwegians.

Related articles:

Sources: Mandiner.hu/Hungarian Conservative