The legendary Alexander the Great, king of the Macedonian kingdom, forever introduced the word "Macedonia" into world history. Now Macedonia is not as big as during the empire of Alexander the Great, but, nevertheless, its very name speaks of the great history of this country. Even if Greece disputes the right of Macedonia to bear such a name ... Modern Macedonia surprises tourists with its nature, mountains, lakes, and culture. This Balkan country has several thermal and ski resorts.

Geography of Macedonia

Macedonia is located in the center of the Balkan Peninsula, in Southeast Europe. Macedonia borders on Bulgaria to the east, Serbia to the north, Kosovo to the northwest, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west. The total area of ​​this Balkan country is 25,333 sq. km, and the total length of the state border is 748 km.

Macedonia is located in the valley of the Vardar River, and yet most of this country is occupied by mountains (Skopska Crna Gora, Pindus and Pirin). The highest peak in Macedonia is Mount Korab, whose height reaches 2764 m. In general, there are 16 mountains in this country, with a height of more than 2,000 meters.

The largest lakes in Macedonia are Ohrid, Prespa and Dojran.

Capital

The capital of Macedonia is Skopje, which now has a population of more than 870 thousand people. Archaeologists believe that the first human settlement on the territory of modern Skopje appeared in the 3rd century BC.

Official language

In Macedonia, the official language is Macedonian (it belongs to the eastern subgroup of South Slavic languages).

Religion

About 67% of the population of Macedonia are Orthodox Christians (Macedonian Orthodox Church). Another 15% of Macedonians are Sunni Muslims.

State structure

According to the 1991 Constitution, Macedonia is a parliamentary republic. The head of state is the President, elected for 5 years.

Legislative power belongs to the unicameral Parliament - the Assembly (120 deputies).

Climate and weather

Macedonia has a transitional climate from Mediterranean to continental. Summers in this Balkan country are hot and dry, while winters are not very cold. There are three climatic zones in Macedonia - temperate Mediterranean, mountainous and temperate continental.

The highest average air temperature in Macedonia is observed in July and August - +31C, and the lowest - in January and February (-3C).

Rivers and lakes

There are about 50 lakes in Macedonia. The largest of them are Ohrid, Prespa and Doyran. By the way, Lake Ohrid was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980.

As for the rivers of Macedonia, the Vardar River flows through the entire territory of this country, the length of which is 388 km.

Story

In ancient times, Thracian and Illyrian tribes lived on the territory of modern Macedonia.

In 356 BC Philip II of Macedon expands the Macedonian kingdom, capturing the surrounding lands. The Macedonian kingdom reached its peak under Alexander the Great.

During the early Middle Ages, Macedonia was under the rule of the Byzantine Empire and the Bulgarian kingdom. At the beginning of the XIV century, Macedonia became part of the Serbian state, and then the Ottoman Empire conquered this country. Macedonia was part of the Ottoman Empire for five centuries.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Macedonia belonged to Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria. Then Macedonia, under the name Vardar banovina, was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

After World War II, Macedonia became one of the republics in the socialist Yugoslavia.

Macedonia became independent in 1991. In 1993, Macedonia was admitted to the UN.

culture

In all Macedonian cities and villages, the inhabitants carefully preserve their folk traditions. An example of this is the medieval town of Krushevo, where the traditions of the Macedonians are probably most pronounced.

The most popular holidays among Macedonians are New Year, Orthodox Christmas, Great Day, Independence Day, and Ramadan Bairam.

Macedonian cuisine

Macedonian cuisine has absorbed many of the culinary traditions of the Balkans. Macedonian cuisine has been heavily influenced by Greek, Turkish, Middle Eastern and Hungarian culinary traditions. Macedonians eat Shopska salad (Shopska salad) almost every day - diced tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and cheese.

Great wine is made in Macedonia, which is no worse than in Greece. Other traditional Macedonian alcoholic drinks are Rakia and Mastic liqueur.

Sights of Macedonia

Ancient Macedonia will be of great interest to any inquisitive tourist. This country has many interesting sights. The top ten Macedonian attractions, in our opinion, include the following:

Cities and resorts

The largest cities in Macedonia are Bitola, Kumanovo, Prilep, and, of course, the capital is Skopje.

Macedonia can be called a mountainous country, so it is not surprising that there are ski resorts there. The most popular of them are Krushevo, Mavrovo, Kozuf, and Popova Shapka.

There are many thermal springs in Macedonia, and even the Turks of the Ottoman Empire knew about their healing properties, who built baths in their places. Now excellent spa resorts operate at Macedonian thermal springs - Banište, Banja Bansko, Katlanovo, Kežovica, Kosovrasti, Istibanja, Banja Kočani.

Souvenirs/Shopping

Where is Macedonia located?

The country with the name (The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) is located in Southeastern Europe. In the north it borders with, in the west - with Albania, in the south - with, in the east - with.

The historical territory of Macedonia consists of three parts: 1 - Vardar Macedonia (now a separate country of the FYR Macedonia), 2 - Pirin Macedonia (Southwestern part of Bulgaria), 3 - Aegean Macedonia (a region in the North of Greece).

The location of the FYR Macedonia is shown below.

What is the capital of Macedonia?

The capital is Skopje.

Skopje is the capital of which country?

Skopje is the capital of Macedonia.

What is the flag of Macedonia?

What is the population of Macedonia?

The population of Macedonia is 2,057,284 as of 2010.

What is the currency (money) in Macedonia?

The official currency of Macedonia is the dinar (Macedonian Denar, mcd.). Small change currency has been abolished since 2013.

What is the language in Macedonia?

The official language of Macedonia is Macedonian. The Macedonian language is very young. It formalized only in the second half of the 20th century. An important point is that Soviet linguists took an active part in the formalization of the Macedonian language. Bulgarians do not recognize the Macedonian language and consider it a dialect of Bulgarian.

What is the traditional religion in Macedonia?

The traditional religion of the people inhabiting modern FYR Macedonia is Orthodoxy. For a long time, on the territory of modern Macedonia, 2 Churches acted at once - Bulgarian and Serbian. Now the Macedonian Church claims autocephaly. So far, the Macedonian Church has not been recognized.

What are the largest cities in Macedonia?

The largest cities in Macedonia are: Skopje, Bitola, Kumanovo, Tetovo, Prilep, Ohrid.

Macedonian is spoken as the main language by about 2-3 million people. It is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia and has the status of a national minority language in Albania, Romania and Serbia. Standard Macedonian became the official language of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1945. At the same time, the main codification of the Macedonian language took place, after which literature began to appear in it. According to 1964 data, about 30% of Macedonians (approximately 580 thousand people) live outside the Republic of Macedonia - mainly in Australia, the USA and Canada.

The Macedonian language belongs to the Indo-European family and belongs to the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. Its closest relative is Bulgarian, with which Macedonian has a high degree of mutual intelligibility. Macedonia was part of Bulgaria for a long time, and although it was Bulgaria that became the first country to recognize the independence of Macedonia in 1945, most Bulgarian scholars still consider the Macedonian language a dialect of Bulgarian.

The language spoken by the Slavic population of northern Greece is today classified as a dialect of the Macedonian language. True, Bulgarian linguists consider it a Bulgarian dialect - like the Macedonian language as a whole - however, this point of view is rather politically motivated. Unlike the Republic of Macedonia, many Macedonian speakers in Greece identify themselves as Slavic-speaking Greeks.

The Macedonian language was declared the official language of the Republic of Macedonia at the first meeting of the Macedonian National Liberation Assembly held on August 2, 1944. The author of the first official Macedonian grammar was Krumé Kepeski, and Blaže Koneski played a leading role in the standardization of the literary language. The first document in the literary standard Macedonian language was the first issue of the newspaper Nova Makedonija (1944), and in 1946 the first issue of the newspaper of the Macedonian diaspora, Makedonska Iskra, was published in the Australian city of Melbourne.

In terms of phonetics, the Macedonian language practically does not differ from Bulgarian. One of the few differences is the stunning of final plosives. Another difference is the accent. In Macedonian, it is placed strictly on antepenultima, i.e. penultimate syllable (except for recent borrowings), and in Bulgarian it can stand on any syllable.

Against the background of other Slavic languages, Macedonian stands out for its frankly analytical grammatical structure: there is no case system in it. Literary Macedonian is the only South Slavic literary language that has three forms of the definite article based on the degree of proximity to the speaker, as well as a past tense form formed by combining the auxiliary verb "to have" and the passive past participle in the neuter gender. Like Bulgarian, Macedonian uses double objects and a mediative.

Since the Macedonian language is a close relative of the Bulgarian and Serbian languages, there are many common words in their lexicon. There are quite a lot of borrowings from Turkish, English and Russian in the Macedonian language, because at different periods of its history Macedonia was occupied by Turkey, the USA and the Soviet Union.

After 1945, Macedonian linguists began an active struggle to cleanse the language of Serbian, Russian and Bulgarian borrowings. To do this, they took as a basis Church Slavonic words from ancient written monuments and arranged them in accordance with the rules of modern Macedonian morphology. True, this struggle was not crowned with particular success, and now in the Macedonian language a wide layer of vocabulary is presented in two versions - archaic (based on the Old Church Slavonic language) and modern (based on the Bulgarian and Serbian languages): action / action (“action”), convincing / persuasive (“persuasive”), winner / winner (“winner”), etc.