Carpathian

The Carpathian group includes, in and around the Carpathian Basin, the Magyars, Slovaks, Székelys, Rusyns, Wallachians, Moldovans and Transylvanians, with German settlers and the Cumans, nomads who came west from the steppe. The Magyars arrived in the late ninth century and founded the Kingdom of Hungary.

After the Mongol invasion of 1237 many Cumans took refuge in Hungary. Wallachia and Moldavia formed south and east of the mountains in the fourteenth century. The Ottoman victory at Mohács in 1526 split Hungary, and Transylvania became a separate principality. The Habsburgs recovered the Hungarian lands, confirmed by the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699.