Small Boulevard (Budapest)

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Grand and Small Boulevards of Budapest

Kiskörút or Small Boulevard (lit. "Small Ring Road") is a major thoroughfare in Budapest. It forms an incomplete semi-circle between Deák Square and Fővám Square. It is the border of the southern part of District 5 (cf. Belváros), the innermost district of Pest. As opposed to Nagykörút, it only touches the Danube at its southern end.

1 Meaning
2 Location
3 Features, notable spots
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Meaning

View of the Károly körút part, from the crossing of Károly körút-Dohány street (utca), a just a few steps from Europe's biggest, and the world's second largest synagogue, the Dohány Street Synagogue

Kiskörút is actually a colloquial name for three parts which connect to each other: (from north to south) Károly körút, Múzeum körút and Vámház körút; these are the names a traveller will find on the map and the buildings.

[edit] Location

It consists of a 1.5 km long road with a tram line in the middle. Its width is around 55 m in the north and it narrows down to 27 m in the south. Its starting point is Deák tér in the north, it crosses Astoria and Kálvin tér, both basic points of reference for the locals, and it ends up at Fővám tér, a square next to Liberty Bridge. Among the major roads, it crosses Rákóczi út at Astoria and Üllői út at Kálvin tér. Deák tér is the meeting point of the three existing metro lines, and Metro 2 and 3 both have a further station as well at Astoria and Kálvin tér. Metro 4 is going to have a station at Fővám tér and Kálvin tér.

[edit] Features, notable spots

The Hungarian National Museum at the Múzeum körút part

The main sights of Kiskörút are the Dohány Street Synagogue ( Romantic, 1859), the second largest such building in the world (after the one in New York) with the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Memorial, the Hungarian National Museum (Classicistic, 1847), and the Grand Market Hall (Nagyvásárcsarnok, Neo-gothic, 1896). The Synagogue can be found in a recess near Astoria.

There are two major universities along Kiskörút: the Arts Faculty of Eötvös Loránd University (1883), and the former University of Economics, today Corvinus University of Budapest (Neorenaissance, 1874). Along Kiskörút, remnants of the old City Wall can still be seen (eg. at Ferenczy István utca corner), although most are already hidden in the courtyards of residential buildings.