Kisalföld: a major geographical region in the Danube Basin in northwestern Hungary, consisting partly of the loessial floodplain of the Danube and Rába rivers and their tributaries, and partly of drier, terraced plains. One of the principal areas of settlement of the Magyars of the time of the Conquest, it was the gateway to the Carpathian Basin, thanks to the communications lines along the Danube, and a main center of transit trade, a great facilitator of urbanization. There were times when its folk culture was among the most developed in the country: the peasant home interiors of the region, for instance, showed an outstanding sophistication. It is a region rich in folk tradition and material relics, has retained some archaic elements of social organization, and has been in the vanguard of folk cultural development since the Late Middle Ages.