Bačka

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Bačka is a flat, fertile region in the Pannonian Plain. It lies between the Danube on the west and south and the Tisza on the east. Today, most of Bačka is in Serbia (in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, with Novi Sad nearby) and a smaller part is in Hungary (in Bács-Kiskun county, with a tiny stretch in Baranya). In Serbia, Bačka is usually divided into Southern Bačka, Western Bačka, and Northern Bačka.

Origins of the name are not certain. It most likely comes from the town of Bač (Bač) or from a historical word used in the region. In the past, Hungarians sometimes called the area “the Serb country.”

A long, changing history shaped Bačka. In the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, two counties—Bács and Bodrog—covered parts of the land, later joined as Bács-Bodrog. After the Ottoman conquest in the 1500s, the area was sparsely populated and many Serbs, Bunjevci, and other South Slavs settled there during the Habsburg era. The 18th century brought intensive colonization by Serbs, Hungarians, Germans (Donauschwabeni), Slovaks, and Rusyns. Bačka changed hands several times in the 18th–20th centuries, reflecting the region’s strategic location.

In the 20th century, Bačka’s borders were affected by wars and treaties. After World War I, the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 split Bačka, with the northern part going to Hungary and the southern part joining the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia). During World War II, Axis occupation placed Bačka under Hungarian control again. After 1944–45 Bačka became part of socialist Yugoslavia and, later, Serbia within the province of Vojvodina. Population movements during and after the war also changed the region’s demographics.

Today, Bačka is known for its productive farmland and is connected by the Danube–Tisa–Danube canal system. The Serbian part has about 915,000 people (as of 2022). The Hungarian part has a smaller population, mainly ethnic Hungarians.