or Pest, the most populous town of Hungary, capital of an administrative territory of the same name, stands on level ground on the E. bank of the Danube, immediately opposite Buda, with which it is connected by a fine suspension-bridge, 135 miles E.S.E. of Vienna. Besides the original or old town in the centre, there are four suburbs, known by the names of Leopold, Theresa, Joseph, and Francis Town respectively. The most of the town being of modern erection, is regularly and handsomely built; the streets are broad, straight, and well paved; and many of the shops, in splendour and decorations, are little inferior to those of Vienna. The principal and most frequented streets in the town are the Herren, Waitzner, Dorotheen, and Grosse-Bruck Gasse. The streets of Pesth present a strange scene, on account of the mixture of grandeur and barbarism that is to be seen in them, and the strange contrasts between the magnificent carriages, with their liveried attendants, and the troops of wild horses or herds of oxen, with their wild-looking drivers clad in sheepskins. Along the bank of the Danube runs a broad quay, which forms one of the principal ornaments of the town, as it is paved and terraced, though till recently it was little better than a muddy tract of ground. It is lined for nearly a mile and a half with lofty and handsome buildings brilliantly whitewashed, among which is an elegant theatre. There are several squares in the town, one of which, the new market-place, is remarkable for its size, and for the elegance and regularity of the buildings that surround it. The public buildings of Pesth are not very numerous nor fine. One of the most conspicuous is an enormous edifice called the Neugebaude, erected in 1796 by the Emperor Joseph II. Its original design is not known, though it is said by the Hungarians to have been intended for the confinement of some of their chief nobles; but it is now used for barracks and artillery magazines. It is four storeys high, and incloses a central court of great extent, which has entrances at the four corners. The university building, and the church in connection with it, are worthy of notice; and the parish church is a fine edifice in the Gothic style. The churches in the town, however, are not numerous in proportion to the population, nor are they remarkable for architectural beauty. They belong to a great number of different sects; for the Roman Catholic, the United Greek, the Separatist Greek, the Lutheran, and the Reformed Church have each places of worship; and there are also several synagogues. The services in these churches are performed in the Latin, Greek, German, Hungarian, and Slavonic languages. The town-hall of Pesth, erected in 1844, has a peculiar tower; and there is a county-hall, recently rebuilt and enlarged, in which the nobles of the county used to meet for discussion and the election of magistrates. The National Museum, devoted almost exclusively to Hungarian articles, is a magnificent building, and contains a large collection of Roman and medieval remains, arms, and other relics of distinguished persons, objects of natural history, a gallery of paintings, and a library of 20,000 vols. and 2000 MSS. Besides the university (which is described under the article Hungary), Pesth contains several other educational institutions. A Hungarian Academy, on the plan of the French Institute, a Lutheran and a Catholic gymnasium, an English school for young ladies, a normal school, an institution for the blind, are the most important of these; and there is also a botanic garden, an observatory, as well as several hospitals and benevolent establishments. The Ludoviceum, a fine building at the S.E. end of the town, was erected in 1837 as a military school; but it has never been used for that purpose, and is now employed as a military hospital. Pesth contains several theatres; in one of which, the National, an elegant edifice, the performances are entirely in the Hungarian language. Besides these, the places of amusement in the town consist of coffee-houses and public walks, the principal of the latter being the Stadtwaldchen, which is situated to the north of the town. Not far from Pesth is the field of Rakos, which is famous in Hungarian history as the place where the national assembly of the Magyars was held in the open air, from the year 1268 to 1525. Horse-races are now held annually on this plain. Pesth is the seat of the principal courts of law in Hungary, though not the capital of that country. These formerly consisted of a Royal Court, having jurisdiction over the district courts, and from which an appeal lay to the Septemviral Court, the highest tribunal in the kingdom. Since 1852, however, Hungary has been made subject to the Austrian law, and the supreme courts now have their seat in Vienna, while Pesth has only an oberlandes-gericht, a landes-gericht, and a tribunal of commerce. The manufactures of Pesth are extensive, consisting of silk, cloth, leather, straw hats, gold and silver articles, and especially meerschaum pipe-bowls, which are brought in a rough form from Constantinople, and are here prepared for the German markets. The trade is very considerable, and consists principally of corn, wine, timber, cattle, and wool. Besides weekly markets, there are four annual fairs held here, which are visited by upwards of 30,000 strangers, and at which transactions to the extent of more than L3,000,000 take place. Pesth carries on a considerable trade on the Danube by steam-boats. The modern town is believed to occupy the site of the ancient Contra Acinacum, which is also called Pession by Ptolemy. Although it was built by Arpad, and walled in the thirteenth century, yet till within the last hundred years it was a place of very little importance, having met with a long series of calamities, in having been taken by the Turks no fewer than five times. It has also frequently suffered from inundations of the Danube, caused by the obstruction of the ice below the town. The most destructive of these floods took place in March 1838, when a great part of Pesth was laid under water, and 2281 houses in the town, besides 207 in Buda, and 1500 in the vicinity, were totally destroyed. That calamity has, however, given occasion for the rebuilding of the town in a much superior style to that which formerly existed. In April 1849, Pesth being in the hands of the Hungarians, while Buda was occupied with a garrison by the Austrian general Hentzi, a severe contest began between the two parties. On the 4th of May, Görgei, with an army of 40,000 Hungarians, occupied the heights above Buda, and began to bombard that town; while the Austrians, in their turn, directed their artillery against the lower city of Pesth. The latter bombardment destroyed many of the public buildings, and did so much damage that most of the inhabitants took refuge in the Stadtwaldchen. On the night of the 16th May the Hungarians made an unsuccessful attack on Buda; but on the 20th the place was taken by assault, after an obstinate and bloody struggle. Pesth is connected by railways, on the one hand with Vienna, and on the other with Debreczin, Grosswardein, and Temesvar, in the E. and S. of Hungary. Pop. (1851), exclusive of the military, 106,379.

The administrative territory of Pesth, which is bounded on the N. by those of Pressburg and Kaschan, E. by that of Grosswardein, S. by the Voivodina of Servia, and W. by the territory of Oedenburg, comprises, besides the district of Buda and Pesth, nine counties, and has an area of 14,094 English square miles.