March 2001

Macedonia, located in Southeastern Europe, is 25,700 square kilometers, roughly the size of Maryland. It is a landlocked country surround by Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia. Macedonia’s Ministry of Interior estimated the population to be slightly more than 2 million in 1990. The ethnic groups are Macedonians, Albanians, Turks, Romas, Serbs, and 2.4% other.

The population is unevenly distributed. With the exception of the Strumica area near the Bulgarian border, the most densely populated part of the country is the northwest which covers Greater Skopje, Tetovo, Kumanovo, and Struga, which account for 51 percent of the population.

Agriculture, concentrated in the Varder region, consists of cash crops grown largely on private farms. These include high-quality tobacco, cotton, and mulberry trees for silk production. Macedonia is also one of the world’s seven legal cultivators of the opium poppy, a lucrative pharmaceutical export. Other specialty crops include fruits, sesame, grapes, and vegetables.

The chief industries in Macedonia are mineral processing, textile manufacturing, food and tobacco processing, electrical machinery production, and chemical production.

CIA World Factbook; The Columbia Gazeteer; NTIS - Macedonia: Geographic Profile of a Balkan State, 2001