Vadász István: A Közép-Tiszavidék kisvárosai a XIX–XX. században – A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok közleményei 54. (1995)

Smaiî towns of the Middle-Tisza Region during the 19th and the 20th centuries Central functions and attraction-zones of urban-like settlements in the Middle-Tisza Region during the 19th and 20th centuries

1 (Summary) The Middle-Tisza Region is a part of the Great Hungarian Plain. This area of approximately 3328 square kilometres with more than 175000 inhabitants is a Hungarian county-sized territory. The Middle-Tisza Region has been said to be a rural, underdeveloped area with backward living circumstances for a long time by regional research, other social sciences and planning policy. Thus peripheral region lain by county border has not a real urban centre, all of the county-seats are far enought to fulfill any influence for rural settlements of the area. The hierarchical organization of settlements is rather poor: there aren't any medium size towns in the Middle-Tisza Region and the hypothetical small urban-like places (9 small towns: Abádszalók, Heves, Kunhegyes, Kunmadaras, Mezőcsát, Polgár, Poroszló, Tiszafüred and Tiszaújváros) do not fulfill their real role of providing goods and services for the rural surroimdings. Actually some of these small cities exsist as key-settlements (^settlements with some urban functions) or some of thein are so-called „dispered cities" without certain tipes of functions and services. In this paper attention is focused upon the spatial and temporal distribution of urban places (urban-like settlements) during the past two centuries. The motivation for this study was a desire to make a clear distinction between towns and villages of this area 1 The author wishes to acknowledge support of the National Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) 183