The first agricultural high-school in the Kingdom of Hungary was established here by a Slovakian enlightenment scholar and engineer Samuel Tešedík (in Hungarian: Sámuel Tessedik). The city was re-settled by Slovaks (among others) in the 18th century, and many Slovaks still live in Szarvas. The town had 17771 Slovak and 7845 Hungarian inhabitants in 1900 and in 1920 had 7544 Slovak and 17224 Hungarian inhabitants. The geometrical centre-point of the Hungarian Kingdom (before 1920) was near Szarvas
