king of Hungary (1173–96) under whom Hungary became the leading power of south-central Europe.

Béla was educated at the Byzantine court and placed on the throne by force of arms by the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus in 1173. He made the Hungarian monarchy hereditary by naming his infant son, Imre, his successor. He also made his court among the most brilliant in Europe. Béla adopted Roman Catholicism, sought the assistance of Rome, and established close ties with France. Upon the death of his first wife, Anne of Châtillon, he married Margaret, sister of Philip II Augustus of France. Many leading Hungarian diplomats were educated in Paris during his reign, and the Cistercian and Premonstratensian monks he invited to Hungary introduced advanced agricultural methods there.

Internationally, Béla was only partly successful in his attempts to recover Dalmatia in two bloody wars with Venice (1181–88 and 1190–91), but he did help the Raskan Serbs gain independence from the Greeks and establish a native monarchy. He tried to make Galicia an appanage of his younger son Andrew, and he aided the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelus against the Bulgars. Béla III was one of the stronger rulers from the house of Árpád.