North Macedonia is in the bottom right corner of this map
Macedonia ( Republic of North Macedonia) is a landlocked country in the Balkans. It shares borders with Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria and in the south Greece. It is over 1600 miles (2500km) across all of Western Europe to us in the UK. The country gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. The region of northern Greece bordering Macedonia also bears the name Macedonia, causing a long standing dispute over the name. Finally in 2019 it was agreed that they would adopt the name of The Republic of North Macedonia. Obviously its citizens refer to the country simply as Macedonia, as do we at Sun New Hope. It is a relatively undeveloped country with the average wage of around €250 per month. However the cost of living in general is little different from the UK. For example : Food, Electricity and clothing costs are comparable with us. Some things, fortunately, are cheaper i.e Veterinary treatment and medications.
A little more information
The official language is Macedonian ( МАКЕДОНСКИ ), which is an Eastern South Slavic language. Its closest relative is Bulgarian. They both use Cyrillic letters with some variations in their respective alphabets and phonemes.
The population of the country is under 2 Million. Nearly 600,000 of those live in the capital city, Skopje in the north of the country close to the border with Kosovo. Skopje as a city is believed to be over 7000 years old. Outside of Skopje and a few other large towns the population is sparse and rural.
Today's North Macedonia was once part of the Ottoman Empire and there are some beautiful buildings particularly Mosques, one of the most notable being the "Painted Mosque". Built in 1495 it is said to be one of the most resplendent Islamic buildings in the world.
The most famous daughter of Macedonia, although of Albanian descent, is Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Born in Skopje in 1910, she was recently made a Saint and there is a museum dedicated to her life in the city.
The currency is the Macedonian Denar (MKD). There are approx 60 MKD denar to 1€.
Macedonia applied to join the EU many years ago but the application was held up due to the naming dispute with Greece. As this has now been resolved it is expected that the application will now be considered.
Much of the country is very beautiful with majestic mountains, lakes and huge areas of forest. There are over 50 lakes and over 30 large mountains in the country and as a whole it is 5th highest average elevation in Europe. There are bears, wild pigs, wolves and lynx amongst the wild animal population.