Reforms of Administrative Division in Hungary by Zoltán HAJDU

Hungary has a historically formed special development and spatial order of state border. Central administration and the direction of the central administration was often deter-mined by foreign powers thus putting the territorial units of administration ~theconties, principally- into the role of "national resistence " throughout the centuries. Since 1867 central, territorial and local administration operated as one, hierarchically articulated system. Changing any element of the system causes modification of the whole system. This study gives a picture about theoretical and practical problems of administrative spatial organization and components of the reform endeavours since the 1870s. Even this relatively short period was full of changes in the state structure and the functions and the operation of different administrative levels. Most ofthe administrative reforms were sub-sequent to structural shifts in economy, society, and policy or to a modification of state borders. The study gives adetailed description of processes and changes after 1945. Special at-tention is paid to geographic and practical questions ofthe 1984 town-surrounding reform