Szatmár

Szatmár stands on the Someș, where the river crosses the plain west of the Carpathians. Its fortress and the neighbouring settlement of Németi guarded routes between the plain and Transylvania. The town enjoyed royal privileges in the Middle Ages and passed through the hands of several powerful families.

After 1526 the Báthory family strengthened the citadel, diverting water from the Someș so that it stood on an island reached by three bridges over the river. The fortress became a contested point in the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Peace of Szatmár, concluded at nearby Nagykároly in 1711, ended the rising of Francis II Rákóczi against the Habsburgs. In 1715 Szatmár and Németi were united as one free royal town, Szatmár-Németi.