Kecskemet

Kecskemet is a city with county rights in central Hungary, county seat of Bacs-Kiskun and the northern of two centers of the Hungarian Southern Great Plain region, positioned about 86 kilometers from both Budapest and Szeged. Established in the ninth century CE, its name deriving from Hungarian words meaning goat pass, it was recognized as a market town under an 1368 charter. The 2016 census recorded 110,813 residents in the city, with an urban area population of 187,835, the eighth largest in Hungary, and the city is known for barackpalinka apricot brandy and for significant Art Nouveau architecture from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A major Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant opened there in 2012 with an investment of 800 million euros, and the city is also home to the Zoltan Kodaly Conservatory, the Hungarian Museum of Photography and the biennial Kecskemet Air Show.