Thirteen Facts About MACEDONIA
(Former Yugoslavian Republic)

1. The Republic of Macedonia is situated in the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula and covers an area of 25,713 square kilometers. Macedonia, the republic, occupies about half of Macedonia (the geographic region). The rest of the region is split between Greece and Bulgaria. In a way like the Republic of Ireland and Ireland.
2. Macedonia (the Republic of) is a landlocked country in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula, the size of Vermont with a population of about 2 million.

   

3. The East-West and the North-South roads, traversing southeastern Europe, cross in Macedonia.
4. The terrain is mainly mountainous. Some peaks very, very rarely being visited by anyone other than chamois, wolves and eagles. Macedonia has 34 mountain peaks exceeding 2,000 meters. The highest is that of Mount Golem Korab which is 2,753 meters above sea level. Titov Vrv in the Shar Mountains is 2,748 meters high, while the peak of Turchin, in the same range, reaches 2,702 meters.

   
   
   

    

5.  

   The ethnic Macedonians are Slavic people. The Macedonian language is related to Polish, Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian. Macedonia’s cultural heritage is exceptionally rich, as is testified to by the large number of old churches and monasteries and their icons and frescoes. The oldest and the most renowned are the churches of St. Sophia and the Holy Virgin of Perivleptos in Ohrid, the church of the Holy Saviour in Skopje, the church of St. George in Kurbinovo, and also the monasteries of St. Pantelejmon at Nerezi near Skopje, of St. John of Bigor and that of St. George in Staro Nagonicha.

   
   
   

   

6. One quarter of the population lives in the capital, Skopje. Skopje has suffered quite a few devastating earthquakes throughout history, the biggest ones in 518 and in 1963, leveling most of the city. In addition, the Austro-Hungarian General Piccolomini ordered the city burnt down in the 18th Century.

   
   

7. Several international cultural events and festivals are held each year in Macedonia. The best known are the Ohrid Summer Festival of Music and Drama, in which renowned musicians from around the world take part, and the Struga Poetry Evenings which -every year- gather some 200 poets from about 50 countries. Ohrid is also the place where the Balkan Festival of Folk Song and Dance is held, and Veles organizes traditional meetings of writers from the Balkan countries in honor of the founder of modern Macedonian literature, Kocho Racin. Skopje is host to the World Cartoon Gallery, The May Opera Evenings and The Open Youth Theatre Festival.
8. The Republic of Macedonia has 53 natural or artificial lakes. The largest is Lake Ohrid, which, lying at an altitude of 693 meters, occupies an area of 349 square kilometers, 118.9 of which belong to Albania. Lake Ohrid has a maximum depth of 286 meters. Lake Prespa covers 274 square kilometers (49.4 of which belong to Albania and 47.8 to Greece) and is 54 meters deep.

   

9. Mother Theresa was born in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, in 1910.

   

10. Of the total number of Macedonia’s inhabitants, 1,355,816 (66.66%) are Orthodox Christians, 611,326 (30.06%) belong to the Muslim faith, 10,067 (0.49%) are Roman Catholics, while there are 56,756 (2.79%) inhabitants practicing other religions.
11. The Cyrillic alphabet, official in Macedonia, is based on the alphabet developed by two Macedonian brothers, St Cyril (thus, Cyrillic) and St Methody, in the 9th century. It was taught by their disciples at a monastery in Ohrid, and it spread across the eastern Slavic world.

    

     

12. In the course of one year, each Macedonian eats or drinks an average of 119 kg of bread, 89 kg vegetables, 50 kg fresh fruit, 31 kg fresh or processed meat, 3.5 kg fish, 61 liters milk, 9 kg cheese, 120 eggs, 15 kg sugar, 1.6 kg coffee, 5.7 liters of wine, 13 liters of beer and 4.5 liters of hard liquor.
13. Hundreds of thousands Macedonians have left the country over the last 150 years. There are large communities in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

*facts compiled through two various websites:
Macedonian Facts 101
Facts About Macedonia

I was going to do “13 Reasons I Love Being 100% Macedonian”, or the like, but I think I’ll save that for later on down the TT road! ENJOY!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Thursday Thirteen. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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