North Macedonia
A landlocked Balkan land of lakes, mountains, and ancient crossroads
North Macedonia is a landlocked country in the central Balkans, a land of mountain ranges, deep tectonic lakes, and the venerable city of Ohrid above its shimmering namesake lake. Home to roughly 1.8 million people of Macedonian and Albanian heritage, with Skopje as its capital, it sits at an ancient crossroads where Roman roads, Byzantine churches, and Ottoman bazaars overlap. After a long dispute with Greece over its name, the country adopted the prefix North in 2019, clearing its path toward NATO membership and European integration.
Mountains and high plateaus cover most of the country, rising to Mount Korab at 2,764 meters on the Albanian border, shared as the highest peak of both nations. The Vardar river cuts through the center on its way to the Aegean, and Lake Ohrid, one of the oldest and deepest lakes in Europe, harbors species found nowhere else. A continental climate with Mediterranean influences along the river valleys supports vineyards, tobacco, and orchards, while the lakes and mountains anchor a growing tourism sector.
The region was the heart of ancient Macedon, kingdom of Philip II and Alexander the Great, and later a contested borderland of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Ohrid became an early center of Slavic literacy under the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Part of Yugoslavia until its peaceful independence in 1991, the country navigated a tense ethnic balance and the prolonged name dispute with Greece, resolved by the 2018 Prespa Agreement. It joined NATO in 2020 and seeks EU membership.