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 The Republic of Macedonia is a landlocked country located in
the heart of the Balkans, between 40°51’ and 42°22' north geographical latitude, and
20°27' and 23°05' east geographical longitude. Located in the southern part of the
Balkan Peninsula, it is surrounded by Bulgaria to the east, Albania to the west,
Greece to the south and Serbia and Montenegro to the north. These borders were
marked after the Second World War, when Macedonia became member of the United
Nations as a federative unit of the then Democratic Federative Republic of
Yugoslavia. With its significant geo-strategic position, the Republic of Macedonia is a major
transportation corridor from Western and Central Europe to the Aegean Sea.
The total area of the Republic of Macedonia is 25,713 km2,
out of which 25,279 km2 is land area. The distance between the furthest points is
160 km from north to south and 215 km from east to west.
The total length of the borders is 850 km, out of which 191
km is shared with Albania, 165 km with Bulgaria, 262 km with Greece, and 232
km with Serbia and Montenegro. Macedonia has lake borders with Albania (28 km)
and Greece (20 km) and river borders with Albania (12 km) and Greece (4 km).
The population of the Republic of Macedonia is approximately
2 million. The
basic characteristic of the distribution of the population
is that nearly one third of the total number of people live in the capital, Skopje, where
the density of the population is 291 people per square kilometre. In general the central
and the western parts of the country are more densely populated than the eastern part.
SURFACE MORPHOLOGY.
The relief map of
the Republic of Macedonia shows that Macedonia is a mountain-valley country with dominantly
mountainous terrain (80% of the total area), whereas the remaining 20% are plain
surfaces. The average altitude above sea level in Macedonia is 829 m. About one quarter of the
land is 500 m high or less, and slightly less than half of the territory is 500-1000 meters
above the sea level. In Macedonia there are 34 mountaintops higher than 2000 m, the highest of them
being Korab at 2,764 m.
According to the tectonic morphology, Macedonia is divided
to four zones: Rodopi zone, Vardar zone, Pelagonija zone, and Western-Macedonian zone.
There are three large lakes, all of them with tectonic
origin and divided by frontier lines:
Lake Ohrid – situated 693 meters above
sea level, stretches over 349 km2,
out of which 119 km2 belong to Albania.
Lake Prespa – situated on three-border
junction between Macedonia, Albania and Greece is 853 meters above sea-level, stretches over 274 km2,
out of which 49 km2 belong to Albania and 48 km2 to Greece.
Lake Dojran – situated on 148 meters
above sea level, stretches over 43 km2,
out of which 16 km2 belong to Greece.
Main Macedonian natural resources include chromium, lead,
zinc, copper, nickel, low grade iron ore, sulphur, timber, and quartz.
CLIMATE.
In Macedonia there
are three climate types – altered Mediterranean climate, moderate continental climate and mountain climate. The altered
Mediterranean climate, which comes as a result from the proximity of seas (the Aegean Sea
is 60 km away and the Adriatic Sea is 80 km away), can be sensed mostly along the river
Vardar. The moderate-continental climate is characterized with relatively cold and wet
winters and warm summers, whereas the springs are usually colder than the autumns. The average
temperature of air is 11,5°C. The warmest month in the year is July with an average
temperature of 22°C, whereas the coldest month is January with an average temperature of 0,3°C. The
highest temperature is up to 44,5°C, whereas the lowest can reach -31,5°C. The average
annual quantity of rains is 742 mm.
ENVIRONMENT.
Macedonia suffers
from high seismic hazard. In the period between 1985 and 2001, 40 earthquakes of over 5 grades intensity of shake
in the epicentre according to the international seismology scale were registered. According to
the seismic movements, there are three seismogeneous zones in Macedonia (along the rivers
Drim, Vardar and Struma) and four epicentral regions.
Macedonia pays much attention to protection of the living
environment. Air pollution from metallurgical and other plants and sources are subject
of continued investigation by domestic and international science institutions.
The population of Macedonia is 2,038,059 million according
to the initial results of the census taken in November 2002. The
previous census of the population of the Republic of Macedonia was
performed in 1994, when 1,936,877 citizens were registered in
Macedonia. This counting was preceded by the census taken in 1991, before
the disintegration of former Yugoslavia and it encompassed all
citizens who were staying in Macedonia at the time. The census in
1994 was the first census conducted in independent Macedonia and it
encompassed the entire population with legal residence in the Republic.
In the census of 2002, for the first time Macedonian citizens residing out
of Macedonia for more than a year were not taken into account.
The State Bureau of Statistics is bound to reveal the definite results
of the last census by November 2004 at the latest.
The basic characteristic of the movement of population in Macedonia is the decrease of the growth rate, particularly
in the past decade. From 1976 to 1991, the growth rate decreased from
15.4 ‰ to 9.8 ‰, whereas in 2001, the growth rate was 5 ‰. The growth
rate is not equal on the entire territory of the Republic of
Macedonia, but varies from one municipality to another. The growth rate is
the highest in the municipalities populated by Macedonian Albanians and
citizens with Islamic confession, like Tetovo, Gostivar, Debar and
Struga. The growth rate is the lowest in Resen, Bitola and Kratovo.
The Republic of Macedonia is a country which still is not
relatively densely populated. The average density of the population in
2001 was 79.4 people on square kilometer. The most densely populated
regions with over 100 people on square kilometer are the Skopje
valley (291 people/km2),
the Polog valley (Dolni Podlog 167 people/km2 and Gorni Podlog 87 people/km2),
the Kumanovo valley and the Strumica valley. All other regions are less densely populated with average
density. The number of people per square kilometer is the lowest in the
Porec region (12 people/km2),
the Malesevo region (24 people/km2)
and the Prespa region (31 people/km2).
One of the most significant attributes of the population in Macedonia is the fact that it is a young population. The
ratio of the population under 19 years of age within the total population
was 33.2% in 1994, whereas the estimate of the population for 2001
shows that this portion accounts for 29.97%. The analysis of the age
structure shows tendency of decrease of the number of sustained
population and increase of the work-capable population. As far as the
sex structure is concerned, in the Republic of Macedonia there are more
men than women, i.e. 51% are men and 49% are women.
The majority of the population in the Republic of Macedonia
is Macedonian. The number of representatives of the many
nationalities and ethnic groups that live in Macedonia varied depending on
the migration movements and the growth rate.
The religious structure received from the census of 1991
shows that 66.66% of the population is Orthodox, 30.06% Islamic,
0.49% Catholic and 2.79% others. According to the data from that
same year, 68.99% of the population said that Macedonian language was their
mother-language, 21.25% said that it was the Albanian language, 3.26% Turkish and
6.5% said that it was some other language.
Out of the migration movements, the migration village-town
has the largest
influence on the structure of the population in the Republic
of Macedonia.
Starting from the second half of the 20th century and following
the process of urbanization, the number of urban population is constantly
increasing at the expense of the number of rural population. According to the
data from the census in 1994, the population in the urban settlements
makes up for 59.8% of the total number of population. The percentage of illiterate
persons is less than 10% from the total population and the number of illiterate
is still the largest among the elderly.
The number of households in Macedonia increased by over 200%
in the last 50 years, whereas the average number of family members per
household decreased from 5.3 to 3.8 members. According to the census from 2002,
in Macedonia there are 557,254 households.
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