Macedonia is a historic region on the Balkan Peninsula of southeastern Europe. It covers all of the country called North Macedonia, plus parts of northern Greece and southwestern Bulgaria. The country of North Macedonia has an area of 9,928 square miles (25,713 square kilometers). Greek Macedonia covers 13,206 square miles (34,203 square kilometers), and Bulgarian Macedonia, 2,502 square miles (6,480 square kilometers). The region of Macedonia became powerful in ancient times, when Macedonian leader Alexander the Great conquered much of Asia and spread Macedonian and Greek culture throughout his empire.
The earliest known settlements in what is now Macedonia were villages established about 6200 B.C. Many different peoples settled in the region over the next several thousand years. The people living there eventually came to be known as Macedones, and the region as Macedonia. The name Macedones comes from the Greek word makednon, meaning high—a reference to the group’s mountainous homeland.
The first known rulers of the Macedonians were members of the Argead dynasty (family of rulers), founded by King Perdiccas I about 650 B.C. During the 500’s and 400’s B.C., the Argeads expanded Macedonian rule into nearby regions.
King Philip II, an Argead, continued this expansion and eventually invaded central Greece. By 338 B.C., Philip controlled all of Greece. With these acquisitions, Macedonia gained valuable natural resources.
Philip was assassinated in 336. His son, Alexander, became king. Crowned King Alexander III, Philip’s son became known as Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, which stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to India. The arts flourished under Alexander’s rule. Macedonia also became extremely wealthy after acquiring the riches of the defeated Persian Empire.
Alexander died in 323 B.C., without leaving a strong successor. Political unity soon collapsed, as Macedonia’s army generals divided up the empire.
Macedonia became a Roman province in the 140’s B.C. When the Roman Empire split apart in A.D. 395, Macedonia remained part of the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. In the A.D. 500’s, Slavs from eastern Europe raided, and settled in, Macedonian towns. Bulgars from central Asia conquered Macedonia in the late 800’s. In 1018, the Byzantine Empire regained control. The region came under Serbian rule in the early 1300’s. But in 1371, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region. Macedonia remained part of the Ottoman Empire for more than 500 years.
By the late 1800’s, the Ottoman Empire had begun to collapse. In 1878, Bulgaria controlled Macedonia briefly. But most of Macedonia was returned to Ottoman rule that same year.
At the end of the Second Balkan War (1913), Macedonia was divided among Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria. Serbian Macedonia became the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia in 1946. The republic became an independent country in 1991, and it adopted the name North Macedonia in 2019.
