Southern Europe · MKD
North Macedonia
The story · 10 chapters
How it was drawn
An inland stretch of the wider region of Macedonia, ruled by Macedon, Rome, Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia and the Ottomans, divided in 1913, shaped as a Yugoslav republic and independent since 1991.
Play the story Take the first lessonThrough the ages
Rivals in history
The kingdoms, empires and states North Macedonia fought or stood against, from the first to today.
- Roman Republic214 BC to 146 BC
Four Macedonian Wars. Rome defeats Philip V at Cynoscephalae in 197 BC and Perseus at Pydna in 168 BC, splits the kingdom into four republics and makes Macedonia a province in 146 BC.
- Byzantine Empire976 to 1018
Tsar Samuel fights Emperor Basil II for four decades from his base at Prespa and Ohrid. Basil wins at Kleidion in 1014, and by 1018 the whole region is Byzantine again.
- Kingdom of Serbia1282 to 1346
King Milutin takes Skopje from Byzantium in 1282. Serbian rule expands until Stefan Dusan is crowned emperor of the Serbs and Greeks in Skopje in 1346.
- Ottoman Empire1371 to 1912
After the Serbian defeat on the Maritsa in 1371 the Ottomans advance, taking Skopje in 1392. They rule for five centuries, crush the Ilinden Uprising of 1903 and lose the region in the First Balkan War of 1912.
In the Great Turkish War an Austrian army under General Piccolomini reaches Skopje in 1689 and sets the city on fire. Karposh's rebellion in the north the same year is crushed by the Ottomans.
- Kingdom of Serbia, then Yugoslavia1912 to 1941
Serbian armies win at Kumanovo in 1912 and take the Vardar valley. Between the wars Belgrade rules it as South Serbia, treats its Slavs as Serbs, and faces a guerrilla campaign by the revolutionary organisation IMRO.
- Kingdom of Bulgaria1913 to 1944
Bulgaria fights Serbia and Greece for Macedonia in the Second Balkan War of 1913 and loses. It occupies most of the region in both world wars, from 1915 to 1918 and from 1941 to 1944.
- Greece1991 to 2018
Greece, whose northern region is also called Macedonia, objects to the new state's name and symbols. It imposes a trade embargo in 1994 and 1995 and blocks NATO membership in 2008, until the Prespa Agreement of 2018.
Since 2020 Bulgaria has conditioned North Macedonia's path to the EU on disputes over history, language and identity, and demands that Bulgarians be named in the constitution.
Today
North Macedonia now
" Greece objected to the new country’s name, insisting it implied territorial pretensions to the northern Greek province of Macedonia, and democratic backsliding for several years stalled North Macedonia's movement toward Euro-Atlantic integration. Immediately after Macedonia declared independence, Greece sought to block its efforts to gain UN membership if the name "Macedonia" was used.
- Capital
- Skopje
- Government
- parliamentary republic
- Head of government
- Hristijan Mickoski
- Head of state
- Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova
- Languages
- Macedonian, Albanian
- Area
- 25,713 km²
Through time
Then and now
- Population1.8 million2023 · 1.2 million in 1950
- Life expectancy77.4 years2023 · 50.6 years in 1950
- GDP per person$14,0502022
- Living in cities63%2025 · 23% in 1950
- Literacy96%2002
- Political regimeElectoral democracy2025 · Closed autocracy in 1950
- Military alliancesNATO2024 · None of these in 1950
- Military spending2.0% of GDP2025
- War deathsNone2025
Population: HYDE 3.3, Gapminder and UN WPP. GDP per capita: Maddison Project Database 2023. Urban share: UN WPP. Life expectancy: Riley, HMD, UN WPP. Literacy: OWID historical estimates, World Bank, UNESCO. Military spending: SIPRI. War deaths: UCDP. Political regime: V-Dem, Regimes of the World. All via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0). Alliances and organization memberships: compiled by Atlas. Satellites in orbit: CelesTrak SATCAT. Modern borders, backcast.
Relations
Close partners and tensions
Close partners
- United States
- Greece
- France
- Germany
- Italy
Summarised from World Bank and Wikipedia data, updated 23 October 2026.