Arad County was an administrative unit in the Kingdom of Hungary, the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom and the Principality of Transylvania. The county was established along the Maros (Mureș) river in the 11th or the , but its first head, or ispán, was only mentioned in 1214. Its territory is now part of Romania, except a small area (the town of Elek and the surrounding villages) which is part of Hungary. The capital of the county was Arad. Geography [[Image:Arad_county_map_(1891).jpg|thumb|left|alt=Map of Arad county in the Kingdom of Hungary|Map of Arad, 1891.]] The medieval Arad County was situated in the lands along both banks of the Maros (Mureș) River. The existence of arable lands, pastures, vineyards and orchards in the western lowlands in the Middle Ages is well-documented. The hilly eastern regions were sparsely populated. The total territory of the medieval county was around . In 1744, Arad County absorbed a large part of Zaránd County, including its capital Zaránd/Zărand (the remainder of Zarand County was then reorganized, with Körösbánya/Baia de Criș as the new capital). In 1876, when the administrative structure of the Kingdom of Hungary was changed, the territory of Arad County was further modified to include the western third of the diminished Zaránd County, namely the Nagyhalmágy/Hălmagiu district (Zarand County was disbanded altogether on that occasion). Arad County shared borders with the Hungarian counties of Csanád, Békés, Bihar, Torda-Aranyos, Hunyad, Krassó-Szörény, Temes and Torontál. The river Mureș formed its southern border. Crişul Alb River flowed through the county. Its area was around 1910. History Origins The Hungarians dominated the region of the Maros in the middle of the , according to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Archaeological finds also shows that Hungarians settled in the plains along the river after their arrival in the Carpathian Basin at the end of the . Place names of Slavic origin, including Lipova (Lippa) and Zăbrani (Temeshidegkút), evidence the presence of Slavic speaking communities, especially in the region where the river, coming from the mountains, reached the lowlands. A powerful chieftain, Ajtony, ruled the territory along the rivers Danube, Maros and Tisza in the early . The Maros formed the northern border of Ajtony's realm, according to the Gesta Hungarorum, but the longer version of the Legend of Saint Gerard wrote that he controlled the lands as far as the Körös River. Ajtony was killed in a battle against the army of Stephen