Ihász István - Pintér János szerk.: Történeti Muzeológiai Szemle: A Magyar Múzeumi Történész Társulat Évkönyve 8. (Budapest, 2008)
I. Tanulmányok - Paládi-Kovács Attila: Magyarország nemzetiségei és etnikai térszerkezete a 18. században
the 18 n century Hungary's Germanic population reached an estimated one million, or 10% of the entire population. The greater part of the population belongi9ng to the German minority were then new settlers, and the smaller part the descendants of the medieval settlers. Apart from the high degree of fecundity, the rise in the Slovak population was helped by assimilation, primarily the fusion of Ruthenians, Czechs, Poles and German ethnic groups. There was what can be called mass voluntary immigration of Romanians from the two Romanians principalities to Transylvania and Banatus Temesiensis. In 1790 the Romanian population exceeded 1.5 million, second only to the Hungarians among the peoples of Hungary. The mass settlement of some 100,000 Serbian soldier-peasants in the Southlands, the spread of Ruthenians (Carpathian Ukrainians) in the woodlands of the North-East Carpathians as well as small groups appearing on the nearby plains all contributed to the ethnic structure and the 18 n century changes on the ethnic map. From today's perspective, the history of ethno-demographic process, colonisations and migrations appears as the competition between peoples to repopulate a geographic region destroyed by war. From the Hungarian aspect it is important to see that purely through natural reproduction the nation was able to double in number in the 1720-1790 period to 3,130,000 and by 1840 to 4,812,000 persons. This latter piece of data may also be affected by processes of spontaneous assimilation. After 1790, Hungary's ethnic structure and ethnic map did not change significantly, although the percentage of Hungarians continued to rise. Increases were not the result of a growth in territory occupied by Hungarian speakers, but an over-average urbanisation, industrialisation, the achievement of a middle-class status and a quick elevation within its ranks.
