How large is the region of Macedonia?
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It covers an area of about 6,798 km2 which is 10.18% of the geographical region Macedonia. One of the regional centers is Blagoevgrad, also known as Gorna Dzumaya, the old name of the city. The region is bordering with Kyustendil Province and Sofia Province on the north, Pazardzhik Province and Smolyan Province on the east, Greece on the south and Republic of Macedonia on the west. The population is estimated around 325.000 people.
Pirin Macedonia (region)
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Macedonia (; , "Makedonía" ) is a geographic and former administrative region of Greece, in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and Greek region, with a population of 2.38 million in 2017. The region is highly mountainous, with most major urban centres such as Thessaloniki and Kavala being concentrated on its southern coastline. Together with Thrace, and sometimes also Thessaly and Epirus, it is part of Northern Greece. It also contains Mount Athos, an autonomous monastic region of Greece.
Macedonia (Greece)
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The restricted borders of the modern Greek state at its inception in 1830 disappointed the inhabitants of northern Greece (Epirus and Macedonia). Addressing these concerns in 1844, the Greek Prime Minister Kolettis addressed the constitutional assembly in Athens that "the Kingdom of Greece is not Greece; it is only a part, the smallest and poorest, of Greece. The Greek is not only he who inhabits the kingdom, but also he who lives in Ioannina, or Thessaloniki, or Serres, or Odrin" . He mentions cities and islands that were under Ottoman possession as composing the Great Idea (Greek: Μεγάλη Ιδέα, "Megáli Idéa") which meant the reconstruction of the classical Greek world or the revival of the Byzantine Empire. The important idea here is that for Greece, Macedonia was a region with large Greek populations expecting annexation to the new Greek state. At this time, the region which today is known as the Republic of Macedonia was part of the Kosovo Vilayet.
Macedonia (region)
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The vast majority of ethnic Macedonians live along the valley of the river [[Vardar]], the central region of the Republic of Macedonia. They form about 64.18% of the population of the Republic of Macedonia (1,297,981 people according to the 2002 census). Smaller numbers live in eastern [[Albania]], northern [[Greece]], and southern [[Serbia]], mostly abutting the border areas of the [[Republic of Macedonia]]. A large number of Macedonians have immigrated overseas to [[Australia]], [[United States]], [[Canada]] and in many European countries: [[Germany]], the [[United Kingdom]], [[Italy]], and [[Austria]], among others.
Macedonians (ethnic group)
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After the treaty of Bucharest, some 51% of the "modern" region that was known as Macedonia was won by the Greek state (also known as Aegean or Greek Macedonia). This was the only part of Macedonia that Greece was directly interested in. Greeks regarded this land as the only true region of Macedonia as it geographically corresponded to ancient Macedon and contained an ethnically Greek majority of population. Bulgarian and other non-Greek schools in southern (Greek) Macedonia were closed and Bulgarian teachers and priests were deported as early as the First Balkan War simultaneous to deportation of Greeks from Bulgaria. The bulk of the Slavic population of southeastern Macedonia fled to Bulgaria during the Second Balkan War or was resettled there in the 1920s by virtue of a population exchange agreement. The Slavic minority in Greek Macedonia, who were referred to by the Greek authorities as "Slavomacedonians", "Slavophone Greeks" and "Bulgarisants", were subjected to a gradual assimilation by the Greek majority. Their numbers were reduced by a large-scale emigration to North America in the 1920s and the 1930s and to Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia following the Greek Civil War (1944–1949). At the same time a number of Macedonian Greeks from Monastiri (modern Bitola) entered Greece.
Demographic history of Macedonia
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In classical times, the region of Macedonia comprised parts of what at the time was known as Macedonia, Illyria and Thrace. Among others, in its lands were located the kingdoms of Paeonia, Dardania, Macedonia and Pelagonia, historical tribes like the Agrianes, and colonies of southern Greek city states. Prior to the Macedonian ascendancy, parts of southern Macedonia were populated by the Bryges, while western, (i. e., Upper) Macedonia, was inhabited by Macedonian and Illyrian tribes. Whilst numerous wars are later recorded between the Illyrian and Macedonian Kingdoms, the Bryges might have co-existed peacefully with the Macedonians. In the time of Classical Greece, Paionia, whose exact boundaries are obscure, originally included the whole Axius River valley and the surrounding areas, in what is now the northern part of the Greek region of Macedonia, most of the Republic of Macedonia, and a small part of western Bulgaria. By 500 BCE, the ancient kingdom of Macedon was centered somewhere between the southern slopes of Lower Olympus and the lowest reach of the Haliakmon River. Since 512/511 BCE, the kingdom of Macedonia was subject to the Persians, but after the battle of Plataia it regained its independence. Under Philip II and Alexander the Great, the kingdom of Macedonia forcefully expanded, placing the whole of the region of Macedonia under their rule.
Alexander's conquests produced a lasting extension of Hellenistic culture and thought across the ancient Near East, but his empire broke up on his death. His generals divided the empire between them, founding their own states and dynasties. The kingdom of Macedon was taken by Cassander, who ruled it until his death in 297 BC. At the time, Macedonian control over the Thracoillyrian states of the region slowly waned, although the kingdom of Macedonia remained the most potent regional power. This period also saw several Celtic invasions into Macedonia. However, the Celts were each time successfully repelled by Cassander, and later Antigonus, leaving little overall influence on the region.
Macedonia (region)
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Macedonia () is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time; however, it came to be defined as the modern geographical region by the mid 19th century. Nowadays the region is considered to include parts of six Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo. It covers approximately and has a population of 4.76 million.
Macedonia (region)
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In antiquity, the territory of present-day Republic of Macedonia equated approximately to the kingdom of Paeonia, which lay immediately north of ancient Macedonia. (The modern Greek region of Macedonia approximately corresponds to that of ancient Macedonia.) After the Romans conquered Greece in 168 BC they established a large administrative district in northern Greece which added Paeonia to other territories outside the original ancient Macedonia, and used the name 'Macedonia' to describe the whole of this new province. This province was divided in the 4th century CE into "Macedonia Prima" ("first Macedonia") in the south, encompassing most of the ancient Macedonia, coinciding with most of the modern Greek region of Macedonia, and "Macedonia Salutaris" ("wholesome Macedonia", also called "Macedonia Secunda" – "second Macedonia") in the north, encompassing partially Dardania and the whole of Paeonia. Thus "Macedonia Salutaris" encompassed most of the present-day Republic of Macedonia. This situation lasted, with some modifications, until the Ottoman Empire absorbed the remnants of the eastern Roman Empire in the 15th century. Ottoman Macedonia then became part of Rumelia, controlled by the Ottoman Empire up to 1913. In 1893 a revolutionary movement against Ottoman rule began, resulting in the Ilinden Uprising on 2 August 1903 (St. Elias's Day). The failure of the Ilinden Uprising caused a change in the strategy of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) from revolutionary to institutional. It split into two wings: one led by Yane Sandanski and fighting for autonomous Macedonia inside the Ottoman Empire or inside a Balkan Federation, and a second Supremist wing supporting the inclusion of Macedonia in Bulgaria. After the Ilinden Uprising, the revolutionary movement ceased and opened a space for the Macedonian Struggle: frequent insurgencies of Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian squads into Ottoman Europe, including the ill-defined territory of the wider Macedonian region. In 1912 rivalries resulted in the First Balkan War of 1912–1913, and the Ottomans lost most of their European lands.
Macedonia naming dispute
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The contemporary region of Macedonia is a wider region in the Balkan peninsula that spans across several modern states, mainly Greece (Greek Macedonia), Bulgaria (Blagoevgrad province), the Republic of Macedonia, and Albania (around Lake Ohrid). The definite borders of the region are vague, but most contemporary geographers agree on its general location. There are several ethnic groups in this region, mostly living within their respective states, all of which are technically "Macedonians" in the regional sense. The Republic itself has a substantial minority (25.2%) of ethnic Albanians who are "Macedonians" both in the regional sense, and as legal citizens of the Republic. However, in a Balkans where ethnicity rather than nationhood defines peoples' identity, Albanians are never referred to (or refer to themselves) as Macedonians.
Macedonia naming dispute
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Upper Macedonia (Greek: Ἄνω Μακεδονία, "Ánō Makedonía") is a geographical and tribal term to describe the upper/western of the two parts in which, together with Lower Macedonia, the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon was roughly divided. Upper Macedonia became part of the kingdom of Macedon in the early 4th century BC. From that date, its inhabitants were politically equal to Lower Macedonians. Upper Macedonia was divided in the regions of Elimeia, Eordaea, Orestis, Lynkestis, Pelagonia, Deuriopus, Atintania, Tymphaea and Dassaretis. The middle and southern parts of Upper Macedonia corresponds roughly to the modern Greek region of West Macedonia while the northern part of Upper Macedonia corresponds to the southwestern corner of the Republic of Macedonia.
Upper Macedonia