Before 1921, Berettyóújfalu was a large municipality, one of the district centres of Bihar County, the centre of about 19 settlements, and the economic and cultural hub of the region, mainly through its trade. Under the Treaty of Trianon, 75% of the county’s territory, 10 609 km² and 582 132 inhabitants were annexed to Romania. Considering the urbanisation of Berettyóújfalu since the beginning of the dualist period, the designation of the new county seat was not the subject of any substantial discussion or consideration, thus on 1 January 1921, our settlement became the centre of “Truncated Bihar County”. These tragic events resulted a very ambivalent situation in the history of Berettyóújfalu. The task of becoming a county seat, and the fulfilment of mainly financial, infrastructural and administrative criteria, brought unprecedented challenges to the municipality. Another serious problem was the situation of refugees from the annexed part of the county and from other parts of Transylvania: the social care and compensation of civil servants and public employees working on the reorganization of Bihar required more than their capacity, not to mention the situation of the wagon-dwellers who were living below poverty line. At the same time, the process of urbanisation, which had been going on for decades, gained new meaning and momentum. The „village city”, as it was called during the period, referring to the dual identity of the settlement, went through the most rapid and extensive development in its history, despite the path Berettyóújfalu took was not optional. The biggest investments of the period took place between 1921 and 1928: among others, the new county hall building, the first headquarters of the Levente paramilitary youth organization and the first Agricultural Advisory Station in the country, as well as the first and only medical institution in the county, the Count Tisza István Public Hospital, were inaugurated.