Click to see a larger map

Lying at the heart of central Europe, Hungary is landlocked and has borders with seven states. Historically, Hungary has been a cosmopolitan cultural center, and during its years of market socialism was more prosperous than the other Eastern Bloc countries. Economic and political reforms in the post-1989 era brought it closer to the EU, which it joined in the major wave of enlargement in 2004; Hungary had already become a member of NATO in 1999. In foreign policy it is particularly sensitive about the treatment of Hungarian minorities in neighboring states.