This article contains basic information about the hungaricum - a unique concept that emerged in the early 2000s in Hungary. This concept is used to identify rare and typically Hungarian objects, phenomena, products and services that are inextricably connected with the Hungarian way of life, Hungarian traditions and culture and reflect the national characteristics of Hungary, outstanding people, their achievements and inventions. The article describes how a civic initiative to collect and preserve a wide variety of national values was born and developed in Hungary. The main purpose of the initiative was to provide a detailed description of hungaricums as well as to include them in a special register, work on their protection, preservation and transmission to subsequent generations. The initiative was supported by the state, and in 2012 a law was adopted on the national values and hungaricums. The author describes the procedure of including hungaricums into the Register of National Heritage. The article provides a list of hungaricums which currently comprises seventy titles and describes those that most clearly represent the Hungarian reality and gained recognition outside of Hungary as well as those that have an interesting history of their origin or designation from the point of view of culture-through-language studies.