The Carpathian Basin has been the most significant Hungarian geographical notion. Despite its relatively short history, the concept has antecedents related to the long historical process of Hungary’s (self-) recognition and (self-) definition in a mostly landlocked environment. Through a critical geopolitical lens, this article investigates how and why the Carpathian Basin emerged as a geographical concept and with what effects. Before even being fully explored, the Carpathians served as a solid reference point to demarcate Hungary at a time when it was not a sovereign state. From the 1910s till the 1940s, the gradually emerging notion of the Carpathian Basin was employed to preserve, and later claim, the territory it was designated to cover. Yet the environmentally determinist ideas of Hungarian geographers – partly based on a selective reading of foreign sources – were harshly countered by their colleagues elsewhere, whose arguments were similarly tendentious but drew less on geographical determinism. The Hungarian interwar establishment’s staunch longing for the unity of the Carpathian Basin, though supported by many, also implied the mobilisation of the whole society towards this goal, pointing to links between foreign and domestic policy.

喀尔巴阡盆地一直是匈牙利最重要的地理概念。尽管其历史相对较短，但其概念与匈牙利在一个内陆环境中的（自我）承认和（自我）定义的悠久历史过程有关。本文通过一个重要的地缘政治视角，研究了喀尔巴阡盆地如何以及为什么成为一种地理概念，以及产生了哪些影响。甚至在没有被完全探索之前，喀尔巴阡山脉曾作为匈牙利不是主权国家时划定匈牙利的可靠参考点。从1910年代到1940年代，喀尔巴阡盆地的逐渐兴起的概念被用来保存，后来要求保护该领土被指定涵盖的领土。然而，匈牙利地理学家的环境决定论思想（部分基于对外国资源的选择性阅读）却遭到其他地方同事的强烈反对，他们的论点同样具有倾向性，但对地理决定论的借鉴较少。匈牙利战争时期机构对喀尔巴阡山脉统一的坚定渴望，尽管得到了许多人的支持，但也暗示了动员整个社会朝着这一目标前进，指出了外交与国内政策之间的联系。