Macedonia

Abstract

A sovereign state since 1991, the Republic of Macedonia (25,333 km2) was previously the southernmost part of the ex-Yugoslavia. It is however only one part of the historical region of Macedonia (68,451 km2) that belonged to the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and the twentieth centuries and which, in 1913, was divided between Greece (50.3 %), Serbia (38.6 %), Bulgaria (9.95), and Albania (0.2 %) (Stojmilov 2002). Today’s Macedonia comprises the former Serbian part of Macedonia and has a population of 2,062,294 million (Statistics Office, MAKStat, as of 31 December 2012). In the region of Macedonia apportioned to neighboring countries, there are 700,000 who are culturally Macedonian and a further 300,000 in Europe and overseas. Although most neighbors diplomatically recognized the Republic of Macedonia in the early 1990s, the conflict with Greece over the name Macedonia meant that the country had to adopt the name “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” in the international community.