Vác is a beautiful town on the left bank of the Danube River in Pest County in Hungary at the east gate of the Danube-Bend 35 km north from Budapest. The town is an important ferry. The town has got 35.535 inhabitants (1990 census) nearly all of them are Hungarians. Two of the Official Ethnic Minorities of Hungary has got ethnic council in the town. They are: Gipsy and Slovakian. The name of the town in Slovakian: Vacov, in German Waitzen.
The territory is populated from the Bronze Age. On the other bank of the river is a Roman fortification. (The Danube was the border of the Roman Empire. On the left bank was Pannonia Province.)
The first mention of the town was in 1075. It was a borough and it was and it is the seat of the Episcopacy of Vác founded by King Saint Stephen. In Vác King Gáza I. is buried. In 1241 the Mongols (Tatars) who devastated the Kingdom of Hungary, leadered by Batu Khan burned up the city and killed its inhabitants. The bishop of Vác settled Germans to the city. In the Middle Ages Vác was one of the important cities of Hungary. In 1485 the city was the place of the diet convened by King Mathias Corvinus. 3 years after the occupying of Buda by the Ottomans (1541), Vác was occupied too. The Turkish years destroyed the Gothic-Renaissance city. After the relief of the castle in 1686 the town had got just a few settlers and ruins. In the next century was the second golden age in the history of the town. The bishop Migazzi had built the Baroque town in these years. At Vác was the end of the first Hungarian Railway line (Pest-Vác) in 1846. In 1849 two battles of the independent war was here.
You can see: Classicist Konstantin Square, the Baroque-Classicist Bishop's Cathedral (1761-1777), Baroque High Square, former Dominican Church (1699-1775), former Orthodox "Vác" Church (1795), City Hall (1735-1739), Baroque Old Hospital, Triumphal Arch, Pointed Tower (city wall ruins), Baroque Piarists Church (1725-1745), Bishop's Palace (1775), "Vak Bottya'n" Town Museum, Franciscan Church and Monastery (1721-1766), Ruins of Vác Castle, Baroque Stone Bridge (1757), the "Seven Chapels" (1734-1780) place of pilgrimage and the Red House (1731)
