The AFL conferences cover all aspects of automata and formal languages, including theory and applications.

The conference series was initiated by Prof. István Peák (1936-1989). He organized the AFL conferences in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1988 and started the organization of AFL’90. These conferences were all held in the hills around Salgótarján. In 1986 and 1988, the title of the conference was Automata, Languages and Programming Systems.

Since the untimely death of Prof. István Peák in 1990, the AFL conferences have been organized in every third year. Professors András Ádám and Pál Dömösi took the lead in the continuation of the series. In 1993 and 1996, two more “Salgótarján conferences” took place. Nowadays a Steering Committee takes care of the continuation of the AFL series.

The last conferences of the series were held in Vasszécsény (1999), Debrecen (2002), Dobogókő (AFL'05), Balatonfüred (AFL 2008) , Debrecen (AFL'11), and Szeged (AFL 2014). In 2017, the conference is organized by the Faculty of Informatics of the University of Debrecen, and the Faculty of Informatics of the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest.