North Macedonia

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Country Name

North Macedonia, Macedonia until February 2019, officially the Republic of North Macedonia.

Location

North Macedonia is a country in Southeast Europe. It is a landlocked country bordering Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west.

Capital

Skopje.

Reason for Naming

The state's name derives from the Greek word Μακεδονία (Makedonía), a kingdom named after the ancient Macedonians.

Their name, Μακεδόνες (Makedónes), ultimately derives from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός (makednós), meaning 'tall' or 'taper', which shares the same root as the adjective μακρός (makrós, 'long, tall, high') in ancient Greek.

The name is believed to have originally meant either 'highlanders' or 'the tall ones', possibly representative of the people.

Flag

The flag was adopted on 5 October 1995. The flag consists of a red background containing a stylized yellow sun, with eight enlightening rays extending from the center to the edge of the background. The red color in the flag is one of the traditional colors of Slavic Macedonia. Red and yellow/gold is also part of the nation’s heritage. The stylized sun seen in the flag symbolizes the “new sun of Liberty” that is mentioned in the country’s national anthem and also in the Coat of Arms. ​ The first flag of the country, known as the Virginia Flag, featured the Vergina Sun, a symbol that had been discovered at Aigai, the first capital and burial ground of the ancient kings of Macedon. Greece considers the Vergina Sun to be a Greek symbol and imposed a year-long economic embargo in order to force the then Republic of Macedonia to remove it from its flag, resulting in the current design.