The town of Monor is situated between the Danube and Tisza rivers, approx. 30 km south-east of Budapest. The international airport of Hungary is not more than 25 km from Monor. The geometric centre of present-day Hungary, Pusztavacs, is less than 20 km from Monor. You can arrive here by car or train, because main road No. 4 and railway line No. 100 cross our town.
Visitors meet the names “Strázsa” (Guard) and “Forrás” (Spring) at every step. Strázsa is one of the southernmost “peaks” of the North Hungarian Mountains at the northern border of Monor. Forrás is the only locally protected area of the town. Strázsa is certainly not a real mountain, not even a hill, because its height is only 191 m. Hill or mountain? The category is not significant, but our Strázsa hill is really important, because it is one of the southernmost points of the Gödöllő-Monor Hills, the North Hungarian Mountains and the whole North-West Carpathians.
So Monor is situated – according to geographers – where the Carpathians and the Great Plain meet. Tradition says that during the Turkish occupation guards watched for the enemy from Strázsa hill. The basic soil of the hill is loess. Cellars were dug in it, walls of houses were made from it, and excellent soil formed on it in some areas. Mammoth remains were also found on Strázsa hill. The inner area of the town lies on the Great Plain, where fine sand blown from the Danube covers the surface. The plain here is not the sea-flat land the poet Sándor Petőfi wrote about, but an imperfect flat with small hills and depressions. Monor – it is said – lies on seven hills, like Rome. In spring inland waters cover part of the land while other parts rise high above the water.
The region of Forrás was declared a locally protected area in 1993. In its meadows you can find water-loving willow groves, and reeds at the deepest point of the valley. Typical soft-stemmed plants are the marsh marigold and the common comfrey. The vegetation of the hillsides consists of dry grassland and shrubs. A protected plant of the steppe grassland is the Buda centaury. There are hawthorn, spindle, wild rose and sloe. Water levels at Forrás once rose with heavy rains and snowmelt, creating a marsh without outflow, but in recent decades extreme dryness has let less water-demanding willows replace the reeds, bulrushes and other marsh plants. On excursions you can meet lizards, several kinds of frogs, birds such as the golden oriole, nightingale and chaffinch, and mammals such as the hare and roe deer.
Little natural vegetation and wildlife remain on other parts of Monor. Not far from Monor, between Csévharaszt and Nyáregyháza, lies one of the most beautiful sandy forest-steppe areas of the country. Such forest steppes once covered the whole area of Monor, but in the last two centuries ploughland, vineyards, orchards and planted forests of little biological value replaced them. Since large-scale farming stopped, vegetation similar to the original has started to return, along with some animals: ground squirrels are back, and the saker falcons that hunt them have appeared too. Just under 20,000 people live in Monor and Monorierdő. The centre, called the “city” by locals, has a genuine small-town atmosphere, which film-makers once came here to capture.
Over the centuries Monor was declared a town three times; the last – hopefully final – declaration was in 1989. Monor is the centre of its region. Two secondary schools, a health centre, a music school, a local history museum and a fire station serve the people of the region too. Monor is a quiet small town, perhaps why many people move here from big cities, especially Budapest. Community programmes are popular: carnival and school balls, the Monor May Days in spring, sports events, the St. Martin’s Day new-wine festival, the St. Urban’s Day event and the harvest parade in autumn.
Monor was 600 years old in 1998. On this occasion the book “Monor Chronicle” was published, with detailed information about the history, geography and people of Monor. A passage from the book: “It is an uplifting feeling to look back on our past and to hear how our ancestors lived and worked for themselves and the community. They too were people of flesh and blood, successful or less so – but what matters is that they sought as many meeting points with each other as possible. Let us do the same, and united, do our best for our town! If these connections succeed, our town develops, and individuals profit too. Respect to our ancestors, who built our present in the past. Our task is to learn from the past and think not only of our present but, constructively, of our future.”
Please visit our town’s homepage! www.monor.hu