Bánk

• 1. Introduction

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  Bánk is a village in Hungary, and in 1870 just 514 people lived there. It sits in the county of Nógrád, which Hungarians call a vármegye. That single recorded figure, 514 residents, is one thread in a long count that stretches across more than a century. The numbers were tallied again and again, year after year, and they do not move in a straight line. They climb, then slip, then climb again. What does a place look like when its whole documented story is a column of population figures? And what can a curious listener learn from watching one small community rise and fall and rise once more?

• 2. A Place In Nogrek County

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  Nógrád is the county that holds Bánk within its borders. In Hungarian, the word for this kind of administrative county is vármegye, a term the source preserves alongside the more familiar English label. Bánk carries two descriptions at once. It is a village, and it is also a municipality, a recognized unit of local administration in Hungary. That dual status places it among the many small settlements that make up the Hungarian countryside. The source offers no streets, no landmarks, and no founding date for Bánk. What it offers instead is a record of how many people called this municipality home, measured across the decades.

• 3. Counting The Years

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  In 1870, the earliest year recorded, Bánk held 514 residents. By 1880 the count had dipped to 489, the lowest figure in the entire series. From there the village began a long, uneven climb. The tally reached 526 in 1890, then 550 in 1900, then 580 in 1910. By 1920 it stood at 638, and by 1930 it had grown to 695. The figure for 1941 was 711. These early decades trace a community that was, on balance, expanding. Each census added a few dozen more names to the village than the one before it.

• 4. Peaks And Retreats

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  In 1949, the population of Bánk fell to 661, a drop from the 711 recorded just eight years earlier. The decades that followed kept the count restless. It recovered to 656 in 1960 and 696 in 1970. Then came the high-water mark. In 1980, Bánk reached 750 residents, the largest figure anywhere in the record. After that peak the numbers receded again. The village counted 724 in 1990, 687 in 2001, and 685 in 2011, the most recent year the source provides. From its lowest point of 489 to its highest of 750, the gap spans 261 people across roughly a century and a half.