Esztergom, birthplace of the first king of Hungary, St Stephen, was also the capital until the 13th Century. It was only after the Mongol invasion that the capital was moved by King Bela IV to Visegrád and later to the hills of Buda. Who would have thought that the completion of the first suspension bridge over the Danube River linking the banks of Buda and Pest, in 1849, would have been the impetus to unifying the three cities, Buda, Obuda (old Buda) and Pest into the capital we know today as, Budapest.
This unification also resulted in Budapest’s first kilometre-zero reference point, originally located at the threshold to Buda Royal Palace, to be moved to the present location near, Széchenyi Chain Bridge, denoting the new city centre.
