Baranya County
– holding a church book from the archives
Districts of Baranya County
Baranya County Seat: Szekszárd
Helpful Hints by Henry Fischer
Baranya Co. is in southern Hungary; which was a county (comitatus) in the Kingdom of Hungary dating back to the 11th century. It is a part of the So. Transdanubia statistical region and the historical Baranya region.
Its current status as one of the 19 counties of Hungary was established in 1950 as part of wider Soviet administrative territorial reform following WW II.
It is bordered by Somogy Co. to the NW, Tolna Co. to the N, Bács-Kiskun Co. & the Danube to the E, & the border with Croatia (part of which is formed by the Drava River) to the S.
The NW part of the county is a mountain area with large forests, the Mecsek Mountains. The central areas are shared between the Baranya Hills & Villány Mtns. The very eastern & southern parts are flat.
Map: static.valasztas
Baranya (Hungarian: Baranya, Croatian: Baranja, Serbian: Baranja (Барања), German: Branau) is a geographical region between the Danube and the Drava rivers. Its territory is mostly divided between Hungary and Croatia, with a small uninhabited pocket of land on the right bank of Danube which belonged to Serbia but which is now under Croatian control as of 1997. In Hungary, the region is included into Baranya county, while in Croatia, it is included into Osijek-Baranja county.
The German settlers in Baranya who were of a Lutheran or Reformed background tended to settle in the northern tier of the County clustered along the border with Tolna County from where the vast majority of them had first settled on arriving from Hesse. In most cases they were first or second generation descendants of the original settlers. The one exception to this rule is Tófü and to a lesser extent Mekényes were families coming directly down the Danube settled there.
The Hungarian Property Tax 1828 Land Census Germans & Hungarians Extractions,
Baranya County (Swabian Turkey)
Hungarian Names of Villages & Cities & LDS / Family History Center Microfilm Numbers
VOL #2 – 1991, -470 pages, 30,975 names; 354 cities.
Cost: US $25 + $3 s/h
[FHC Film#: 0622971-0622977]
Unvergessene Heimat. Branau/Baranya: Gesamtredaktion und Gestaltung Mathias Volk
Matthias Volk
Selbstverlag, 1985 – 624 pages
Municipalities | Towns | Villages in Baranya County
Villages with Little or No Information in Baranya County
Village Resources & Church Record Transcriptions
Provided by your Swabian Turkey Coordinator Henry Fischer
Researching in Swabian Turkey is often confusing, as the church books were kept at different localities from time to time. Most of those settlements were of Lutheran or Reformed faith, whose churches and pastors were persecuted prior to the Edict of Toleration in 1784. The information below should help the researcher to find out where the church books were kept for individual localities at various times in the County of Tolna. ~Henry Fischer
Baranya Megye [Hungarian] – Branau Komitat [German] – Baranyiensis Comitatus [Latin] – Baranjska županija [Croatia]
Church Record Transcriptions for Baranya County
Articles About Specific Villages in Baranya County
- Repopulating Hungary with Germans
Focus on “Bóly of Baranya County” - Gerényes in Baranya County
- Mágocs a Market Town in Baranya County
Last updated: 09/10/2026