This map, created by Count Pál Teleki in collaboration with Zsigmond Bátky and Károly Kogutowicz, was published in 1920 to mark the Paris Peace Conference.
The map shows the ethnic distribution of the former Kingdom of Hungary (Greater Hungary), based on data from the 1910 Austro-Hungarian census. Rather than colouring administrative areas according to the majority ethnic group, as was customary in ethnographic maps of the time, Teleki opted for a system proportional to population density: each square millimetre of the map represents 100 actual inhabitants. The sparsely populated mountainous regions and bodies of water are left blank, whilst the central plains of the Danube and the Tisza, which are more densely populated and have a greater Magyar presence, are shown in colour.
The legend lists eleven ethnic groups:
- Hungarians (in red).
- Romanians (in pink).
- Slovaks (in light green).
- Germans (in orange).
- Serbs (in turquoise).
- Croatians (in light blue stripes).
- Ruthenians (in dark green).
- Bunyevacs or Catholic Serbs (in striped turquoise).
- Bulgarians (in orange).
- Vendos or Slovenians (in light green with stripes).
- Poles (in orange stripes).
The choice of bright red to represent the Magyars is no accident. Set against the muted tones of the other ethnic groups, red dominates the visual field overwhelmingly. Mountainous areas and regions with greater ethnic diversity are left blank, which visually reduces their prominence within the overall picture. This system of representation was recognised by geographers such as Isaiah Bowman, who acknowledged its methodological rigour, whilst criticising the deliberate distortion in favour of the Magyar ethnic group.
On the very day that the Hungarian delegation received the terms of the Treaty of Trianon in Paris, on 16 January 1920, Count Albert Apponyi presented it to the Allied representatives as a cartographical argument in favour of more favourable borders for Hungary. The propaganda strategy had no effect and the treaty was signed in June 1920. As a result, Hungary’s territory was reduced from 325,000 square kilometres and a population of 21 million to 93,000 square kilometres and a population of 7.5 million.
Since then, the Carte Rouge It became the symbol of Hungarian irredentism during the interwar period, and was reproduced and adapted on numerous occasions. You can read the full background to this map and the Hungarian irredentist movement in this newsletter article.
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