The area was an important center in the life of the Hungarian tribes during the Hungarian Conquest. The Ópusztaszer Memorial Park of National History holds relics of these historical times. The appearance of an independent settlement here started around 1770, the first and important waves of colonization ended in 1776. Due to its central location and its importance in transportation - the road leading to Buda used to go across the town - the town became the center of the region surrounding it. It gained the status large village in 1970 and became a large village with town rights in 1984. It gained full town status on the 1st of March 1989. For the settlements surrounding the town (Baks, Balástya, Csengele, Ópusztaszer, Pusztaszer) it became the center for education, health care, trade and transportation by now.

The area of today's Csengele was an uninhabited grassland for centuries, it served as a pasture of the city of Szeged. Colonization started in the second half of the 19th century. The first serious concepts of creating a settlement here came in the 1930s. The area surrounding the railway station and the place known as the Kovágó-turning were considered as possible locations for this new village. On the 1st of January 1950 Csengele became an independent village. The village was governed by a delegated body at the beginning which changed to a local council later. Since 1990 the village has its own local government. In the 1960s, the "golden age" of the village, population was 3600. There were five co-operative farms in the village at this time. The population has been decreasing continuously since then, nowadays it is just over 2000 people.

The history of Pusztaszer...

The history of Pusztaszer goes back to the times of the Hungarian Conquest. Chieftain Árpád and his valiant warriors rested beside lake Körtvély and the Gyümölcsény forest after the victorious battle of Alpár. According to the records of an anonymous historian of King Béla they stayed here for 34 days and considered the problems of the country. The ancient Hungarians called this place Szeri after the Hungarian expression used in the records for "consider".

According to the documents lake Körtvély is today's lake Dóci, and Gyümölcsény was located at the area of today's Pusztaszer. Documents from the 15th., 16th and 17th century prove this. Before the national assembly was finished at the puszta of "Szer" the chieftains wanted to make a memorial of the Hungarian Conquest. Each of the seven chieftains constructed a halom (hill). The seven famous hills still stand here at the area of Pusztaszer and Ópusztaszer. Their names are Árpádhalom, Sáregyházimalom, Szárnyékhalom, Vesszoshalom, Kártyáshalom, Császárnéhalma and Lukashalom.

The area of Szer-Szerváros went through a lot of battles during the coarse of history. It was destroyed by the Tartars, the Turkish, it was burnt down several times, but it was always brought back to life again. It is called Pusztaszer since 1640. At the beginning of the 18th century the area of the 25 acre settlement was split up into 4 parts (Upper-Pusztaszer (today's Pusztaszer), Lower-Pusztaszer, Pusztaszer-meadows).

The owner of the land changed several times. Chieftain Ond, the Pósa family and Count Pallavicini were amongst the more famous landlords. The Count and his wife, Leopoldina Zichy, bought the four parts of Pusztaszer for 50.000 Hungarian forints in 1803. The city of Kecskemét filed a lawsuit against the transaction, and won the case. According to the documents Kecskemét purchased the 8000 acre area for 93.062 forints in 1828. After this the Count gave the name Sövényháza to his land, and Kecskemét became the administrative center of the area. The relatively large distance (53 km) of the region from Kecskemét created problems soon after the transaction. The city wanted to get rid of this burden, so it took steps towards the independence of Upper-Pusztaszer. They received the permission from the Minister of Internal Affairs in 1872. Four years passed, but nothing happened. A law in 1876 made it impossible to create villages in the region, because there were too few private estates. Inhabitants were only landholders, not landowners

On the 10th of October, 1882. the city assembly declared, that the administrative acts about the Pusztaszer area would be done in the closest village, Kistelek. On the 25th of October, 1900. the same body decided to start to distribute the land to the users: between 1903 and 1934 5.223 acres of land would be given to private hands.

As long as Kecskemét was in charge of the region they also developed it. They built homes for puszta-judges and midwives. They founded schools, built green-cross houses and designated areas for cemeteries. Sövényháza became Ópusztaszer in 1973 along with its fascinating beauties, the village museum, archeological sites and the Feszty-cyclorama. Pusztaszer was left with the nice historical name only.