Merk Zsuzsa - Bálint Attila: Baja is town for 300 years - A Bajai Türr István Múzeum kiadványai 27. (Baja, 1999)

shape of a clover, the central square, Szentháromság tér, or "Trinity Square", is often referred to as Hungary's St. Mark's square.

A basic requirement of any human settlement is the availability of fresh water, and Baja does enjoy a wealth of water. Archeological findings demonstrate that the area has been inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic times. Besides findings of the Neolithic or New Stone Age, a plenitude of objects from the Copper Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age attest to the continuity of human presence.

The city and its region have been continuously inhabited by Hungarians since the Hungarian Conquer. The name itself is of Turkish origin; Baja (the name means "bull") was probably the first landlord of the region. The first authentic record mentioning the city by name dates from 1323. The document is related to a lawsuit and speaks about "Baja nobility". The first landlords of Baja were members of the elite of the landed gentry, noblemen with medium-size properties in the county and, often, in the neighboring counties.

It is difficult to tell with certainty what Baja may have been during the Middle Ages, because the very first authentic record that mentions Baja as an "oppidum" dates back to as late as 1472. We can surmise, however, that Baja did exist as an "oppidum" long before that date, as it lies in the crossing of a number of important transportation routes. This is where the roads from Kalocsa, Halas, Szeged, Szabadka (today Subotica in Yugoslavia) and Zombor (today Sombor in Yugoslavia) come together. Baja was probably also a ferry landing on the left bank of the river Danube, just across the Bâta ferry landing. The 1406 royal charter authorizing the holding of fairs in Baja also survives. By then, Baja was probably an important fair site, attracting bondservants from faraway communities. Consequently, we can be rather certain that, despite the fact that no oppidial patent survives, Baja was one of Hungary's oppida already before 1472.

In 1541, the Ottomans occupied a large area in the middle of Hungary. Baja also fell to the Turks. A Hungarian chronicler writes of Turkish Bácska in 1553: "Good Lord! What were once the best and most fertile of lands are now but barren wastes; how forsaken everything is! what hoards of wild beasts rummage in the fields and vineyards of the old times! how scarcely does one see a peasant, how rarely any cattle, and how infinite the wasteland!"

During the Ottoman rule, Baja is the center of a Turkish nahiye, an administrative area smaller than a county. Turkish travel writer Evlia Tschelebi writes that Baja's harbor "is a formidable stronghold on the banks of the Danube, with a rather large harbor".

The military offensive lead by the Habsburg emperors against the Turks reached the area between the rivers Tisza and Danube in 1686. The Ottomans

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