Bekes County

Békés exists because the Körös rivers exist. Three branches—Fehér-Körös, Fekete-Körös, and Sebes-Körös—converge to form the Hármas-Körös, flowing west across 5,631 square kilometers of the flattest land in Hungary before joining the Tisza. This river system created the Great Plain's most fertile agricultural region, with alluvial soils deposited over millennia. The county's name probably derives from Old Hungarian "békés" (peaceful), though some claim Slavic "békaság" (frog-place), referencing the marshes that once lined the rivers before drainage projects turned wetlands into wheat fields. Either way, the name proved ironic—this border region saw constant invasion, settlement, and upheaval.

After Ottoman forces withdrew in the early 1700s, Békés was nearly empty. The Habsburgs repopulated it systematically: Hungarians, Slovaks (settling Békéscsaba, Szarvas, Tótkomlós), Serbs (Battonya), Germans (Németgyula, Elek), and Romanians (Kétegyháza). By the mid-19th century, most non-Magyar populations had assimilated, but the ethnic patchwork left linguistic and architectural traces still visible today. The 1858 railway connecting Békéscsaba to Pest transformed the county into Hungary's granary, shipping wheat, corn, and barley north. The Great Plain's black earth—chernozem soil up to three meters deep—made Békés the kingdom's most productive agricultural region.

Then came the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, redrawing Hungary's borders and severing Békés from its natural economic partners. The county lost Arad and Nagyvárad (Oradea)—both major cities now in Romania—to the new international boundary. Békéscsaba, previously a secondary market town, suddenly had to serve as regional center for a truncated hinterland. The railway that once carried grain to Vienna now stopped at a heavily guarded border. The 20th century turned Békés into a socialist collectivized breadbasket: state farms, mechanized harvesting, quotas sent to feed Budapest and Soviet allies. The county's population peaked at 472,000 in 1950.

In 2025, Békés confronts a crisis more fundamental than political borders or economic systems: water. The Great Hungarian Plain, especially its southern regions, faces intensifying drought. In 2024, drought affected 80% of Hungary, causing corn production to drop 19% and wheat by 9.8% county-wide. Only 2-3% of Békés farmland is irrigated, despite government efforts to double irrigation capacity. The Körös rivers that created this agricultural paradise now run lower each summer. EU Common Agricultural Policy subsidies keep farmers afloat—direct payments, drought relief funds, irrigation infrastructure grants—but subsidies can't make it rain. The county's population has fallen 20% since 1990 to 351,000, with young people leaving for Budapest or Vienna. Schools close in villages; combine harvesters sit idle.

By 2026, Békés exemplifies what biologists call an evolutionary trap. For 150 years, reliable rainfall provided environmental cues that guided optimization—drain the marshes, plant monoculture grains, specialize completely. The chernozem soil and flat terrain signaled productivity, and the county became spectacularly efficient at converting rainfall into grain. But climate change has decoupled those cues from fitness. The county optimized for a climate that no longer exists, with no bet-hedging strategy to buffer variability. EU subsidies mask proximity to a phase transition: there exists a rainfall threshold below which commercial agriculture becomes unviable, and gradual drying could trigger sudden collapse. The larder of Hungary is running out of water, and no amount of subsidy can change hydrology. The question evolutionary biologists would recognize: What happens when the environment that shaped your specialization fundamentally shifts?