International data

At the initiative of the UN, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities has been celebrated every year on December 3 since 1992. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that today 16% of the world's population, or 1.3 billion people, live with a significant disability. Their number is increasing, which is linked to the higher prevalence of non-communicable diseases and people’s longer life expectancy. In Hungary, more than one fifth of the population aged 16 and over lived with some level of disability in 2023, which is lower than the EU average.

Significant events in village life were pig slaughter and pig slaughter feasts, which started traditionally on 30 November, Andrew’s Day. Not only the immediate family took part in the all-day work, but it was also a custom to invite neighbours, relatives and friends. The circumstances of pig keeping and pig slaughtering substantially changed in the last decades. The number of small farms fell, and that of domestic slaughtering shows a decreasing trend. In 2023, three-quarters of Hungary’s pig population of 2.5 million belonged to pig keepers each having a population exceeding 5,000 pigs.

The collection of interactive figures provides up-to-date information on the latest domestic and international socio-economic trends. The decisive part of the figures included in HCSO Monitor are downloadable in both image and data formats (PNG, SVG and CSV). Feel free to browse the data in HCSO Monitor, updated many times a week!

The idea of the smoke free day originated in the United States with the aim of helping, assisting people in quitting smoking. On the initiative of the WHO the third Thursday of November was declared smoke-free day on international level. Our smoking habits have a strong impact on out health. The proportion of smokers decreased in Hungary during the last decade, still, this ratio remains high in international comparison.

The chart collection contains monthly and quarterly indicators of economic and social developments by country and over time. The monthly updated chart collection with the latest available data for each indicator is available here.

On the initiative of violinist Yehudi Menuhin UNESCO declared 1 October the International Music Day in 1975. Wherever we may live on the Earth, music is part of our everyday life. Concerts and festivals attract crowds, accessing music content, however, underwent a significant change compared to the turn of the millennium. Digital options, the internet, replacing vinyl records and tape cassettes in a great extent, transformed the music industry; the AI appearance in turn is going to generate further significant shifts.

Initiated by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), World Tourism Day has been celebrated on 27 September every year since 1980. In the recent period, domestic and international tourism has been characterised by recovery and growth following the coronavirus pandemic. According to preliminary data, 9.9 million guests spent 24.5 million tourism nights in tourist accommodation establishments in Hungary in January–July 2024, 6.0% more than in the same period of the previous year.

The yearbook provides an overview of Hungary's demographic, social and economic processes, environmental characteristics and their changes over time, with the help of tens of thousands of data of 500 tables, graphs and maps. Innovatively, the Tourism, catering chapter in the volume includes the gross receipts of tourist accommodation establishments by type of accommodation. Another change is that this year the Regional data chapter already presents territorial data by tourism area, giving greater emphasis to tourist destinations.

Along with urbanisation and industrialisation, alcohol consumption habits changed in Hungary, with beer taking over the place of the hitherto more popular wine in the 1960s. Both production and consumption peaked in the 1980s and have been slowly declining in both areas since then. Today we are in the middle of the EU in beer consumption, with per capita consumption about half that of Czechia, the leader.

In the framework of the Hungarian leadership of the Council of the European Union the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) is leading for half year the statistical working group of the Council. The HCSO created on the occasion of the Hungarian leadership of the Council of the European Union a new sub-page, where, beside the program of the leadership and legislation files, continuously updated news and coverages are informing the public about its leadership activity.

Hungary will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2024, in co-operation with Spain and Belgium. The priorities of the Hungarian EU presidency include strengthening competitiveness, addressing demographic challenges, developing defence capabilities and promoting enlargement in the Western Balkans. In addition, ensuring the stability of the EU's institutional transition is also an important objective for the Hungarian presidency during this period.

The European Association of National Parks (EUROPARC) declared 24 May 1999 as European Day of Parks to commemorate the establishment of the continent's first national parks in Sweden on this day in 1909. The aim of the initiative is to raise awareness of the importance of national parks and other protected areas and thus to promote wider public support for nature conservation.

The UN initiative aims to raise awareness of the threats to our planet's climate and the natural changes caused by climate change. Records show that 2023 was the warmest year on Earth, and parts of Europe also broke all-time temperature records. In other regions, rain falling in a single day, even the equivalent of the area's annual precipitation, caused widespread flooding and huge property damage.

Hungary joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. Over the past 20 years, Hungary has made significant progress, thanks in part to EU financial support. Hungary will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union for the second time in the second half of 2024.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, unemployment fell in 14 EU Member States, while in 13 countries – including Hungary – it rose or remained essentially unchanged. The EU average rate fell by 0.3 percentage points to 6.2% compared with a year earlier. Unemployment rates were lowest in Czechia, Poland, Malta, Germany, Slovenia and the Netherlands (between 2.3% and 3.5%), and highest in Greece (12.1%) and Spain (13.0%).

The circumstances caused by the Covid19 pandemic also had a negative impact on the socio-economic development of the V4 countries. This publication examines the return of the economy and society to pre-pandemic levels in the V4 countries and the EU, based on the Eurostat Recovery Dashboard indicators, bearing in mind the priorities (stability, reopening, partnership) set out in the current programme of the Hungarian Presidency of the Visegrad Cooperation (Recharging Europe).

The digital publication of Eurostat allows a quick and interactive overview of the status of countries and offers the possibility of their comparison with other European countries. The different visualisation tools offer a playful way to look into selected statistics focusing on population, living conditions, health, working life, income and expenditure and social life.