1. Geography and Independence

Macedonia is a land-locked South Slavic country in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula, bordering on Kosovo and Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west. In 1994 ethnic Macedonians accounted for 66.6 percent of the population, ethnic Albanians 22.7 percent, ethnic Turks 4.0 percent, Roma 2.2 percent, and Serbs 2.1 percent. More than a quarter of the populatio…