Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: How large is the region of Macedonia?
Macedonia (/ˌmæsɪˈdoʊniə/(listen)) 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.[a] It covers approximately 67,000 square kilometres (25,869sqmi) and has a population of 4.76 million.
The first Macedonian immigrants to the U.S. arrived in the late 19th century from the Bansko region of what is today Bulgarian Macedonia. These Macedonians had often been educated by American missionaries and were encouraged to migrate to the United States for higher education or to attend missionary schools. But the first large swath of Macedonians came in the early 20th century from the border regions in the north of what is today Greek Macedonia, primarily the regions near Kastoria ("Kostur"), Florina ("Lerin"), and the south-west of the Republic of Macedonia, notably around Bitola. These Macedonians had faced the greatest retributions from the Ottoman military due to the fact that the 1903 Ilinden uprising was centered in these areas.
The controversy surrounding a Greek minority within the Republic of Macedonia stems from the statistical treatment of Aromanian (Vlach) population groups, who in their majority have historically identified themselves as Greeks as part of the Rum millet. A large number of Greek-identifying Vlachs left the region after the Balkan Wars, with Florina in Greece witnessing the arrival of a large Greek-speaking commercial population from Monastiri (Bitola). Ethnologue however cites Greek as an "immigrant language" in the Republic of Macedonia.
Yugoslav Macedonia was the only region where Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito had not developed a Partisan movement because of the Bulgarian occupation of a large part of that area. To improve the situation, in 1943 the Communist Party of 'Macedonia' was established in Tetovo with the prospect that it would support the resistance against the Axis. In the meantime, the Bulgarians' violent repression led to loss of moral support from the civilian population. By the end of the war "a Macedonia national consciousness hardly existed beyond a general conviction, gained from bitter experience, that rule from Sofia was as unpalatable as that from Belgrade. But if there were no Macedonian nation there was a Communist Party of Macedonia, around which the People's Republic of Macedonia was built".
Aromanians form a minority population throughout much of Macedonia. They largely identify as Greeks and most belong to the Greek Orthodox Church. In the 1951 census they numbered 39,855 in all Greece (the number in Macedonia proper is unknown). Many Aromanians villages can be found along the slopes of the Vermion Mountains and Mount Olympus. Smaller numbers can be found in the Prespes region and near the Gramos mountains.
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 refers also to a geographic region in Greece, which roughly coincides with the southernmost major geographic subregion of Macedonia. It is divided in the three administrative sub-regions ("regions") of West, Central, and East Macedonia and Thrace. The region is overseen by the Ministry for Macedonia–Thrace. The capital of Greek Macedonia is Thessaloniki, which is the largest city in the region of Macedonia; Greeks often call it the "co-capital" of Greece.
The Bulgarian advance into Greek held Eastern Macedonia, precipitated internal Greek crisis. The government ordered its troops in the area not to resist, and most of the Corps was forced to surrender. However the post-war Treaty of Neuilly again denied Bulgaria what it felt was its share of Macedonia. From 1913 to 1926 there were large-scale changes in the population structure due to ethnic migrations. During and after the Balkan Wars about 15,000 Slavs left the new Greek territories for Bulgaria but more significant was the Greek–Bulgarian convention 1919 in which some 72,000 Slavs-speakers left Greece for Bulgaria, mostly from Eastern Macedonia, which from then remained almost Slav free. IMRO began sending armed bands into Greek Macedonia to assassinate officials. In the 1920s in the region of Greek Macedonia 24 chetas and 10 local reconnaissance detachments were active. Many locals were repressed by the Greek authorities on suspicions of contacts with the revolutionary movement. In this period the combined Macedonian-Adrianopolitan revolutionary movement separated into Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organization and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. ITRO was a revolutionary organization active in the Greek regions of Thrace and Eastern Macedonia to the river Strymon. The reason for the establishment of ITRO was the transfer of the region from Bulgaria to Greece in May 1920.
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.
South Illyria became Epirus Nova, part of the Roman province of Macedonia. In 357 AD the region was part of the Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum one of four large praetorian prefectures into which the Late Roman Empire was divided. By 395 AD dioceses in which the region was divided were the Diocese of Dacia (as Pravealitana), and the Diocese of Macedonia (as Epirus Nova). Most of the region of modern Albania corresponds to the Epirus Nova.
In Europe's Balkan region the OK gesture is associated with irredentist campaigns for a United Macedonia. For Macedonian nationalists the two fingers forming the "O" stand for the Macedonian word Обединета ("Obedineta", meaning “United”) and the other three fingers symbolize the regions of Aegean Macedonia in northern Greece, Pirin Macedonia in southwestern Bulgaria, and the region of Vardar Macedonia that roughly corresponds to the Republic of Macedonia's 21st century borders. Taken together, the United Macedonia Salute also resembles the Vergina Sun that was the royal symbol of Ancient Macedonia. Both Sun and Salute became popular among Macedonian Greeks in the 1980s, and the Sun appeared on the Macedonian flag after the Republic of Macedonia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. Three years later Macedonia changed their flag under economic pressure from Greece who saw the use of the Vergina Sun as a threat against Greek sovereignty. The United Macedonia Salute remains controversial among many people in the Balkan region, especially those living within parts of Greece or Bulgaria that Macedonian nationalists wish to claim as provinces for the Republic.
As the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, a constituent country of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Macedonia was first divided into regions in 1945. Later, the regions were abolished, and Macedonia was divided into municipalities. Before its independence, Macedonia was divided into 34 municipalities.
The Roman province of Macedonia was officially established in 146 BC. By the 4th century AD the Paionians had become fully Hellenized or Romanized and had lost their ethnic identity. During most of Late Antiquity and the early Middles ages, Macedonia (as a region) had been a province of the Byzantine Empire. In the 6th century AD, the part which today forms the Greek region of Macedonia was known as Macedonia Prima (first Macedonia), and contained the Empire's second largest city, Thessaloniki. The rest of the modern region (today's Republic of Macedonia and Western Bulgaria) was known as Macedonia Salutaris. 
The term is currently used by some scholars, mostly contextualised, along with the sister terms Vardar Macedonia (describing the part of Macedonia region in which the Republic of Macedonia inhabits) and Pirin Macedonia (describing the part of Macedonia region in which the Blagoevgrad province of Bulgaria inhabits). The area of the Macedonian region that is part of Albania and Kosovo is often excluded. The term is used more frequently by ethnic Macedonians and has irredentist connotations.
As a regional group in Greece, Macedonians refers to ethnic Greeks (98%, 2001) living in regions referred to as Macedonia, and particularly Greek Macedonia. This group composes the vast majority of the population of the Greek region of Macedonia. The 2001 census for the total population of the Macedonia region in Greece shows 2,625,681.
The region of Western Macedonia is situated in north-western Greece, bordering with the regions of Central Macedonia (east), Thessaly (south), Epirus (west), and bounded to the north at the international borders of Greece with the Republic of Macedonia (Bitola region) and Albania (Korçë County).
With the dissolution of Yugoslavia an issue emerged over the name under which the former (federated) republic of Macedonia would internationally be recognized, between the new country and Greece. Being the Macedonian part of Yugoslavia (see Vardar Macedonia), the federated Republic under the Yugoslav identity had the name Republic of Macedonia on which it declared its sovereignty in 1991. Greece, having a large region (see Macedonia) also under the same name opposed to the usage of this name as an indication of a nationality. The issue is currently under negotiations after a UN initiation.
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 (terminology) Demographic history of Macedonia Macedonia (Greece) Republic of Macedonia Blagoevgrad Province History of Albania History of the Balkans History of Bulgaria History of Greece History of Greek Macedonia History of the Republic of Macedonia History of Serbia Macedonian nationalism Irredentism List of homonymous states and regions
Macedonian Greeks self-identify culturally and regionally as "Macedonians" (Greek: Μακεδόνες, Makedónes). They form the majority of the region's population (~51%). They number approximately 2,500,000 and, today, they live almost entirely in Greek Macedonia. The Greek Macedonian population is mixed, with other indigenous groups and with a large influx of Greek refugees descending from Asia Minor, Pontic Greeks, and East Thracian Greeks in the early 20th century. This is due to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, during which over 1.2 million Orthodox Christian refugees from Turkey were settled in Greece, 638,000 of whom were settled in the Greek province of Macedonia.[11] Smaller Greek minorities exist in Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, although their numbers are difficult to ascertain. In official census results, only 86 persons declared themselves Greeks in Bulgarian Macedonia (Blagoevgrad Province) in 2011, out of a total of 1,379 in all Bulgaria; while only 442 persons described themselves as Greeks in the 2002 census in the Republic of Macedonia. Ethnic Macedonians self-identify as "Macedonians" (Macedonian: Македонци, Makedonci) in an ethnic sense as well as in the regional sense. They are the second largest ethnic group in the region. Because of their primarily Slavic origin they are also known as "Macedonian Slavs" and "Slav Macedonians" (Greek: Σλαβομακεδόνες, "Slavomakedones"). They form the majority of the population in the Republic of Macedonia where according to the 2002 census, approximately 1,300,000 people declared themselves as Macedonians. According to the latest Bulgarian census held in 2011, there are 561 people declaring themselves ethnic Macedonians in the Blagoevgrad Province of Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonia). The official number of ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria is 1,654. A relatively small number of ethnic Macedonians exist among the Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia. There has not been a census in Greece on the question of mother tongue since 1951, when the census recorded 41,017 Slavic-speakers, mostly in the West Macedonia periphery of Greece. The linguistic classification of the Slavic dialects spoken by these people can be either Bulgarian or Macedonian, although the people themselves call their language "Slavic". Most of these people declare themselves as ethnic Greeks (Slavophone Greeks), although there are small groups espousing ethnic Macedonian[12] and Bulgarian national identities. In the 2011 Albanian census, 5,870 Albanian citizens declared themselves Macedonians. Macedonian Bulgarians are ethnic Bulgarians who self-identify regionally as "Macedonians" (Bulgarian: Mакедонци, Makedontsi). They represent the bulk of the population of Bulgarian Macedonia (also known as "Pirin Macedonia"). They number approximately 250,000 in the Blagoevgrad Province where they are mainly situated. There are small Bulgarian-identifying groups in Albania, Greece and the Republic of Macedonia with an uncertain size. In the Republic of Macedonia, 1,417 people claimed a Bulgarian ethnic identity in the 2002 census. Paradoxically, during the last few years around 53,000 Macedonians have applied for Bulgarian citizenship and more than 70,000 ethnic Macedonians have already obtained Bulgarian passports.[13][14] Bulgaria's admission to the European Union is evidently a powerful motivation factor. In order to obtain it they must sign a statement proving they are Bulgarian by origin, effectively not recognizing their rights as a minority.[15][16] Albanians are another major ethnic group in the region. Ethnic Albanians make up the majority in certain northern and western parts of the Republic of Macedonia, and account for 25.2% of the total population of the Republic of Macedonia, according to the 2002 census. Smaller numbers of Turks, Bosniaks, Roma, Serbs, Vlachs (Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians), Egyptians, Armenians and Jews (Sephardim and Romaniotes) can also be found in Macedonia.
Drama () is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the Region of East Macedonia and Thrace. Its capital is the town of Drama. The regional unit is the northernmost within the geographical region of Macedonia and the westernmost in the administrative region of East Macedonia and Thrace. The northern border with Bulgaria is formed by the Rhodope Mountains.
The largest concentration of Macedonian Muslims can be found in western Macedonia and eastern Albania. Most of the villages in Debar regions are populated by Macedonian Muslims. The Struga municipality also holds a large number of Macedonian Muslims who are primarily concentrated in the large village of Labuništa. Further north in the Debar region many of the surrounding villages are inhabited by Macedonian Muslims. The Dolna Reka region is also primarily populated by Macedonian Muslims. They form the remainder of the population which emigrated to Turkey in the 1950s and 1960s. Places such as Rostuša and Tetovo also have large Macedonian Muslim populations. Most of the Turkish population along the western Macedonian border are in fact Macedonian Muslims. Another large concentration of Macedonian Muslims is in the so-called which is just south of Skopje. There are also major concentrations of Macedonian Muslims in the central region of the Republic of Macedonia, surrounding the Plasnica municipality and the Dolneni municipality.
At the 2008 Bucharest summit, Greece blocked a proposed invitation because it believed that its neighbor's constitutional name implies territorial aspirations toward its own region of Greek Macedonia. NATO nations agreed that the country would receive an invitation upon resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute. Macedonia sued Greece at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over their veto of Macedonia's NATO membership. The ICJ ruled in December 2011 that Greece was wrong to have blocked its neighbor's bid, finding them in breach of a 1995 interim accord that allowed Macedonia to join international organizations under the name "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", which is how NATO, with the exception of Turkey, recognizes their bid. Greece also blocks Macedonia's accession to the European Union over the naming dispute. In March 2016, Macedonian Defense Minister Zoran Jolevski stated his hope that his country's handling of the European migrant crisis might bring it closer to NATO membership.
Macedonia incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, a kingdom ruled by the Argeads and whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great and his father Philip II. The name "Macedonia" was later applied to a number of widely-differing administrative areas in the Roman and Byzantine empires, resulting in modern geographical Macedonia. Even prior to the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1830 Macedonia was identified as a Greek province, albeit without clearly defined geographical borders. Modern Macedonia was established in 1913, in the aftermath of the Treaty of Bucharest which ended the Balkan Wars. It continued as an administrative subdivision of Greece until the administrative reform of 1987, when it was divided into the regions of West Macedonia, Central Macedonia, and part of the region of East Macedonia and Thrace, the latter containing also the whole Greek part of the region of Thrace.
A large proportion of Aromanians can be found in the region of Macedonia, which is shared by Albania, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, and Bulgaria (region of Pirin Macedonia).