Today thousands of tourist visit this magnificent building every year, since it is something so unique, that in no other place in the world can they find something so spectacular. The Hungarian House of Parliament is open for visiting, so please,come and see it, you will not regret the time spent inside.

"The motherland does not have a house." Thus wrote bitterly Mihály Vörösmarty, one of the greatest poets of the Hungarian heroic age of bourgeois civilization, in 1846. This nation now being consciously formed by the great men of the age - István Széchenyi, Miklós Wesselényi, Ferenc Deák, Lajos Kossuth, Ferenc Kölcsey, Sándor Petőfi -, was very much in need of a physical home. As a counterweight to the royal palace rising high on Buda Hill, the Pest side of the Danube was chosen to symbolize that Hungary's destiny lay with popular democracy and not with royal whim.

On 12 October 1885 ground was broken on the quay at Tömő square in the Lipót district. With an average of 1000 workers laboring at any one time, the building took 17 years to complete. Because the builders strove to use - whenever possible - Hungarian materials, Hungarian techniques, and Hungarian master craftsmen, entire industries flourished. The building is 268 m long, 123 m wide across the center, has a dome 96 m high and covers 18,000 square meters of surface area and 473,000 cubic meters of space. 90 statues and the coats-of-arms of various cities and counties adorn the exterior while on the inner walls can be found 152 statues and motives of national fauna. Nearly 40 kg of 22-23 karat gold was used for decorations.

The building has 27 gates, 29 interior staircases and 13 personal and service elevators. Around 50 five story apartment buildings could fit into the Parliament which gives the vistor a notion of its size. Aesthetically the main facade faces the Danube, but the offical main entrances lies on Kossuth square. The northern wing houses the offices of the Prime Minister, while the southern wing contains those of the Pesident of the Republic.