Nógrád County in the context of "Counties of Hungary"

A village is a human settlement or a residential community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighborhoods. Villages are normally permanent, with fixed dwellings; however, transient villages can occur. Further, the dwellings of a village are fairly close to one another, not scattered broadly over the landscape, as a dispersed settlement.

In the past, villages were a usual form of community for societies that practiced subsistence agriculture and also for some non-agricultural societies. In Great Britain, a hamlet earned the right to be called a village when it built a church. In many cultures, towns and cities were few, with only a small proportion of the population living in them. The Industrial Revolution attracted people in larger numbers to work in mills and factories; the concentration of people caused many villages to grow into towns and cities. This also enabled specialization of labor and crafts and the development of many trades. The trend of urbanization continues but not always in connection with industrialization. Historically, homes were situated together for sociability and defence, and land surrounding the living quarters was farmed. Traditional fishing villages were based on artisan fishing and located adjacent to fishing grounds.

Hollókő (Hungarian: [ˈholloːkøː]) is a village in northern Hungary, located in Nógrád County. The village, which was constructed in the 13th century and developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, is a well-preserved ethnographic village of the Palóc people, with traditional wooden architecture and layout of buildings, farms, and orchards. Because of its exceptional preservation and testimony to rural life before the arrival of modern farming practices, the village was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Its name means "Raven-stone" in Hungarian.

The Palóc [ˈpɒloːt͡s] are a subgroup of Hungarians in Northern Hungary and southern Slovakia. While the Palóc have retained distinctive traditions, including a very divergent dialect of Hungarian, the Palóc are also ethnic Hungarians by general consensus. Although their origins are unclear, the Palóc seem to have some sort of connections with the Khazar, Kabar, Pechenegs, Cuman and especially with the Avar tribes. The writings of Kálmán Mikszáth gave new prominence to the people in 1882 with his work The Good People of Palóc. The Palóc village of Hollókő was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 because of its preservation of traditional Palóc architecture and land use. Two branches of the Palócs can be distinguished based on their place of residence and customs: the western and the eastern (Barkó) Palócs, although the folk customs of both branches are mixed with remnants of ancient inner Asian beliefs and Christianity. They can be further grouped based on their dialect. The residence of the Palócs extends to the often-mentioned Palócföld (Palócland), which used to belong to Hont and Gömör and Kishont counties, and today it covers partly Slovakian and partly Hungarian areas (Pest, Nógrád, Heves, and Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén counties): Cserhát, Mátra, Bükk mountains and north of these horizontal basin and the Ipoly Valley - nearly 150 settlements.

The Palócs never had special rights, so their first written mention dates only from 1656, when the notary from Nagykőrös recorded the following in his account book: "I bought ten pairs of mother of pearl knives from the Palócs". Their own specific ancient name is "had", which is the name of all the Palócs living in the same community who bear the same surname, even if they are form a separate family.

Pest (Hungarian: Pest vármegye, pronounced [ˈpɛʃt]; German: Komitat Pest) is a county (vármegye) in central Hungary. It covers an area of 6,393.14 square kilometres (2,468.41 sq mi), and has a population of 1,339,090 (2023). The suburbs of Budapest surrounds the national capital Budapest and is the county's largest administrative unit (13.8%/1.3 million in 2013). It shares borders with Slovakia and the Hungarian counties Nógrád, Heves, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, Bács-Kiskun, Fejér, and Komárom-Esztergom. The River Danube flows through the county. The capital of Pest County is Budapest, although Budapest is not part of Pest County. Starting 2018, they also constitute different NUTS:HU level 2 regions, as previously Pest County has lost catch-up aids from the European Union because of the high development of Budapest.

There are eight statistical regions of Hungary, These regions consist of the 19 Counties of Hungary and the capital city. There were seven regions created in 1999 by the Law 1999/XCII amending Law 1996/XXI but since 2018 the capital Budapest has left the Central Hungary region and become its own region.

• Northern Hungary includes the counties Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Heves and Nógrád.
• Northern Great Plain includes the counties Hajdú-Bihar, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, and Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg.
• Southern Great Plain includes the counties Bács-Kiskun, Békés and Csongrád-Csanád.
• Central Hungary includes the county of Pest.
• Budapest includes the capital Budapest.
• Central Transdanubia includes the counties Komárom-Esztergom, Fejér and Veszprém.
• Western Transdanubia includes the counties Győr-Moson-Sopron, Vas, Zala.
• Southern Transdanubia includes the counties Baranya, Somogy and Tolna.