Nyíregyháza is the capital of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county in the far northeast of Hungary, a flat plains city of around 115,000 people close to the borders with Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania. Its historic centre is a compact set of 19th-century squares dominated by the Kossuth tér and the bulky Greek Catholic cathedral, with a smaller Lutheran church, a Calvinist church, an Orthodox church and the synagogue all within a few minutes' walk — a reminder of the unusual religious mix of this corner of the Great Hungarian Plain.
The main draw for most visitors is Sóstó, the wooded lake and spa district 5 km north of the centre, where warm saline waters feed the Sóstó Thermal Baths and the open-air Sóstó Village Museum — one of the best ethnographic skansen museums in Hungary, with farmhouses, windmills and churches relocated from villages across the eastern plains. The Nyíregyháza Zoo is also unusually good for a regional Hungarian city. The Jósa András Museum in the city centre covers the archaeology and folk culture of the wider region.