[2]: 1781  The characteristic landscape is composed of treeless plains, saline steppes and salt lakes, and includes scattered sand dunes, low, wet forests and freshwater marshes along the floodplains of the ancient rivers.

[4]: 565 A large, mostly treeless, grassy plain which can only be used for grazing livestock, as the poor quality of the soil makes it unsuitable for crop production.

[5] From the late Pleistocene era the landscape of the Alföld or Great Hungarian Plain consisted in large part of arid alkaline grasslands devoid of trees – the puszta.

[6] The extent of the puszta over much of the Alföld was drastically reduced by the extensive drainage and irrigation works carried out during the nineteenth century, and it survives principally in the Hortobágy National Park, established in 1972 in eastern Hungary and centred on the village of Hortobágy in Hajdú-Bihar County.

[9][better source needed] In addition to cattle, sheep, and pigs, the region also produces poultry and foie gras.