As is the case with many other nations, the exact origin of the Hungarians is not known. The most commonly accepted guess in scientific circles is that their ancient homeland was somewhere in Western Siberia. This theory is very much supported by the fact that the Hungarian language is a branch of the Finno-Ugric languages (Finnish and Estonian being the two other major languages belonging to this group).
The Migration (V.-IX. c.) and The Conquest (895)

The Hungarian tribes arrived to the Carpathian Basin with the last wave of the Great Migration at the end of the IXth century (see their route on this map). Under the leadership of Árpád the Hungarians easily conquered the sparsely populated territory. Some critical minds (always looking for the bad side of everything) do not miss the chance to point out here that the Hungarians were actually chased by another nomadic tribe, the Petchenegs. Anyway, in the first century after their settlement the Hungarians were leading regular raiding campaigns to the West and to the South, thus reaching the same reputation in continental Europe as the Vikings in coastal areas. As you can imagine, they were very popular indeed!