Gespanschaft

A county (Hungarian: vármegye or megye; for the various names, their origin and use see here) is the name of a type of administrative units in the Kingdom of Hungary and in Hungary from the 10th century until the present day.

This article deals with only the period before the Treaty of Trianon of 1920. For lists of the individual counties, see Administrative divisions of the Kingdom of Hungary. For counties of Hungary since 1950, see Counties of Hungary.

The Latin word comitatus is derived from the word comes, which originally stood for companion or retinue member. In the Early and High Middle Ages, the title comes was a noble title used in various meanings, in the Kingdom of Hungary especially (but not exclusively) in the meaning "county head".

The Hungarian word megye is likely derived from Southern Slavic medja (međa, међа) meaning approximately territorial border. The Slavic word in turn is related to Latin medius (middle) through a common Indo-European root. The original word is still used in present-day Slavic languages, i.e. in Slovak (as medza), in Slovenian (as meja), in Serbian and Croatian (as međa, међа), in similar sense, and seems to have meant rather the border of a county initially in the Hungarian language, too. Hungarian has another word (mezsgye) of the same origin meaning borderland.

The Hungarian word ispán (county head) is derived from the Southern Slavic word župan (жупан), which was used by the Slavs living in the Carpathian Basin before the arrival of the Hungarians and stood for the head of various territorial units. Title župan was also used as a ruling title in medieval Serbia.

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