Kunság (German: Kumanien; Latin: Cumania) is a historical, ethnographic and geographical region in Hungary, corresponding to a former political entity created by and for the Cumans or Kuns.

Tradition dates its emergence to 1279, when Ladislaus IV, a half-Cuman King of Hungary, granted its first set of fiscal and judicial privileges.

The new regime granted Kunság to the Teutonic Order and repressed Cuman separatism, especially after the inhabitants' willing participation in Rákóczi's War of Independence.

Centralizing tendencies were nevertheless toned down under Maria Theresa and, in 1745, Kunság and Jazygia were merged into a single autonomous district, whose inhabitants were allowed to buy their way out of serfdom.

While the Hungarian tribes moved into Hungary, the Cumans still inhabited the vast areas of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, where they had created a powerful nomadic confederacy (see Cumania).

Their conversion to Christianity began here, under Hungarian auspices, leading to the establishment of a Cumanian Catholic Bishopric; some members of the tribes had converted to rival Eastern Orthodoxy,[6] or to Bogomilism,[7] and had to be brought back to Catholicism.

[8] In 1238, King Béla IV specifically invited Cumans under Köten (Kuthen, Kotyan) to colonize a central part of his realm (ad mediculum terre sue), presumably located near the Tisza.

[22] Such attacks, and messages of protest from the Catholic Church, eventually increased pressures for assimilation and full conversion: already in 1279, the Diet of Hungary legislated on the mass baptism of still-pagan Cumans and promised to disperse them across the realm.

[13] The tribes underwent a change of lifestyle after finding an economic niche as pastoralists, but also adopted habitation patterns from the depopulated Hungarian villages where they had been originally settled.

[29] Though enjoying some fiscal privileges, the Cumans and Jazyges were ordered by King Sigismund to pay an annual census tax—a measure which may indicate that they were no longer relevant as soldiers.

[36] However, historian Nathalie Kálnoky argues that Cuman and Jazyg identities were unwittingly protected by the Ottoman invasion, since it interrupted the two group's "dissolution" into the estates of the realm.

[46] This new uprising was finally ended by the Treaty of Szatmár, which stipulated that the suppression of all autonomy for the Cumans and Jazyges; the decision was then upheld by the Hungarian Diet.

She had heard renewed pleas submitted by members of both enclaves,[49] but was also interested in getting them to ransom their freedom—the Habsburg monarchy needed financing for the Second Silesian War.

[50] Fused into "Jászkunság" or "Jazygia-Cumania", the two regions had judicial and executive autonomy under the Palatine; there was equality of taxation, and the tribes were allowed to accept or reject applications for individual membership.

[62] Such urbanization allowed Cumans to participate in the recolonization of Bács-Bodrog County, further to the south; however, the recording and correction of borders in the age of Josephinism prevented Jászkunság itself from expanding southward and created frustration among its inhabitants.

[68] Sent as Jászkunság's first delegate to the Diet in 1832, János Illéssy fought to preserve judicial and fiscal equality for all Cumans, but lost to a noblemen's caucus.

[71] By contrast, the residents of Jászberény were enthusiastic supporters of the rebel government, also demanding increased autonomy under a Jász-Kun Polgár Elnök ("President of Jazygia-Cumania"), and election reform.

[75] Habsburg and Russian troops reached the Tisza in mid-July 1849, but resistance continued to be put up in parts of Kunság: Colonel Korponay attempted to ignite an anti-Russian revolt in Kunmadaras, before retreating to Debrecen.

[78] Limits on political life were imposed during the 1850s and '60s, when cooperative societies and guilds were closely supervised by the state; their operation was further reduced by a major drought in 1863–1864.

His controversial bill, presented in December 1873, proposed to divide the area between three larger counties, with Little Cumania and parts of Jazygia being attached together with Solt.

[89] Archeologist Silviu Oța describes Cuman society as comprising "bits and pieces of previously destroyed tribes, whose collective memory of tribal origin had been preserved by the simple class of warriors".

[94] Such verdicts were partly contradicted by archaeologist Kinga Éry, who researched Perkáta's cemetery and concluded that the original Cumans were "Euro-mongoloid", with a short stature and skull.

Thus: "Cumans were not categorized as a cultural or ethnic group and there was no special vocabulary to describe their religious standing, social position or political organization: the [Latin] term Cumani covered all these.

In the case of individual Cumans, when the designation Cumanus was added to their proper names it was used not as a cultural or ethnic term but as a sign of legal status".

[99] Likewise, the more remote areas of Kunság continued to practice "traditional household slaughter" of animals, which included the breaking of bones; this may also suggest that they maintained some pre-Christian rituals.

[100] Though they learned agriculturalist skills from their neighbours, Kunság's residents remained attached to pastoralism, and resisted feudal pressures by relying on commons and homesteads.

According to art historian Ida Bodné Bobrovszky, this showed that the area consciously resisted being "Turkicized", possibly influenced by Protestant preaching against Islamic proselytism.

[120] This trend was contrasted by a late-19th-century movement wishing for "Jász County" (Greater Cumania included) to secede from Szolnok, mainly on economic grounds.

[121] The idea of distinct representation was also revived in December 1918, weeks after the Aster Revolution, when Miksa Strobl proposed to federalize the First Hungarian Republic.

[13] A 2012 survey noted a "strong, partly ethnic-religious identity" in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, rather than in Kunság as a region; the authors surmised that the newer territorial unit had geographical coherence.