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Former Yugoslav Rep. of Macedonia

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Macedonia is located in Southeastern Europe, north of Greece. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Macedonia fell under the control of the Byzantine Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries. During this period, large groups of Slavic people migrated to the Balkan region. The Ottoman Turks conquered the territory in the 15th century, and after more than four centuries of Turkish rule, the region was split between Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia in 1913. Macedonia became one of the constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia following World War II, and gained its independence peacefully from Yugoslavia in 1991. The country was spared the inter-ethnic violence that raged elsewhere in the Balkans following the break-up of Yugoslavia, but it came close to civil war a decade after independence. Some ethnic Albanians, angered by perceived political and economic inequities, launched an insurgency in 2001 that eventually won the support of the majority of Macedonia's Albanian population and led to the internationally-brokered Framework Agreement, which ended the fighting by establishing a set of new laws enhancing the rights of minorities. At independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, Macedonia was the least developed of the Yugoslav republics. For more than a decade after independence, economic growth was sluggish, in part due to external shocks. Hyperinflation in the early 1990s, trade embargoes by Greece over the dispute about the country’s constitutional name and flag, regional conflict, and the 2001 internal security crisis compounded the problems of restructuring and creating a market economy. Economic growth has picked up in recent years supported by improvements in the business climate and a surge in foreign direct investment.

 
Country Forecast
Major Cities
City Population Estimated
Skopje 482,626 2010
Kumanovo 115,894 2010
Bitola 85,463 2010
Key Data
Region : Europe
Population : 2,058,611
Area Total : 25,333 km2
Area Land : 24,856 km2
Coast Line : km
Capital : Skopje
Climate : Hot, dry summers and autumns and relatively cold winters with heavy snowfall
Languages : Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish, remnants of Serbo-Croatian language typology also spoken in certain areas
Currency : denar
Holiday : Independence Day is 3 September, Freedom Fighter's Day is 4 July
Average Daily TemperatureBoundaries
January : 0.20°C / 32.40°F
July : 23.20°C / 73.80°F
Annual Rainfall : 509.6mm / 20.1"
   
 
Greece 228km
Serbia 221km
Albania 151km
Bulgaria 148km
Kosovo 0km
Ethnic DivisionsReligions
Macedonian 67%
Albanian 23%
Turks 4%
other 2%
Roma 2%
Serb 2%
 
Eastern Orthodox 67%
Muslim 30%
Other 3%

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