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North Macedonia

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The Republic of Macedonia, known internationally and diplomatically as "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM), is an independent state on the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe, with an area of 25,713 sq km and a population of just over two million. Its capital and principal city is Skopje (population 600,000).

Some 1.4 million of the republic's inhabitants speak Macedonian, a south Slavic language and related to Old Slavonic. Prior to the Kosovo war of 1999, Albanian and Turkish were each spoken by about 250,000. There are an estimated 120,000 Romany speakers.

The republic contains roughly 38% of the area and nearly 44% of the population of the geographical region known as Macedonia, the remainder of which is divided between neighbouring Greece (with about half of the total) and Bulgaria (with under a tenth). The lands governed by the Republic of Macedonia were known as Vardarska Banovina before 1945.


It is one of several areas which comprised Yugoslavia until the latter's breakup in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After 45 years as a republic of the Yugoslav federation, Macedonia was proclaimed independent on September 17, 1991. The Greek government, however, raised objections concerning:

  • The name: Macedonia was claimed by Greece to be a Greek name, already in use for the Greek region of Macedonia.
  • The flag "Vergina Sun": the sixteen-ray star that was to appear on the flag was a symbol of the ancient state of Macedon, to which Greece claimed to be the sole heir. (For more on this, see Vergina.)
  • A reference in the constitution about reuniting the three parts of the historical province of Macedonia which today belong to the FYROM, Greece, and Bulgaria.

As a result the United Nations recognised the state in 1993 under the temporary reference of "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". The country's flag now represents an eight-ray sun and not the former star; and the reference in its constitution was changed so as not to reflect any territorial claims.

The state's name remains a source of local and international controversy. Internationally, the republic is known in political and cultural organisations, notably the United Nations, the European Union, the European Broadcasting Union, the International Olympic Committee among others, exclusively as FYROM. Most diplomats are accredited to the republic using the FYROM designation. The usage of each name remains controversial to supporters of the other. A permanent agreement on how the Macedonian republic should be referred to internationally has not yet been reached.

The republic remained at peace through the violent nationality conflicts which convulsed the former Yugoslavia's western republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in 1991-1995, but the influx of an estimated 360,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from neighbouring Kosovo in 1999 threatened to destabilise the republic.

A brief civil war in March 2001 involving Albanian rebels in the west of the country ended with the intervention of a small NATO ceasefire monitoring force and government undertakings to concede greater rights to the Albanian minority.


From the CIA World Factbook 2000 / 2001.


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