Bocfölde

phone district code:

population:

1116 person

area:

873 km²

Bocfölde (often spelled as Bocfolde in English documents), is a village in Western Hungary. The village is situated in Zala county, settled on and between hills running in North-South direction. The closest city, Zalaegerszeg, the county seat, is located about 6 km to the North.

History

Its first recorded name, in 1247, is Buchfelden. Its stone church, mentioned in a 1426 document, was dedicated to Saint Margaret of Hungary. The church, and the entire village was destroyed in the 17th Century. Its decline started after the Ottoman Empire occupied the nearby defensive fort of Kanizsa, now Nagykanizsa in 1571. As the Ottoman troops used the Kanizsa-Sopron-Vienna road, which crossed the village, for several military campaigns, only after the liberation of Hungarian territories in the late 1600s, resettlement became safe. By 1826 its population, made up by families of small land owners, grew to 413 residents, from 56 households.