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154-484: Macedonia ( / ˌ m æ s ɪ ˈ d oʊ n i ə / MASS -ih- DOH -nee-ə ; Greek : Μακεδονία , romanized : Makedonía , pronounced [maceðoˈni.a] ) is a geographic and former administrative region of Greece , in the southern Balkans . Macedonia is the largest and second-most-populous geographic region in Greece, with a population of 2.36 million (as of 2020). It
308-577: A Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered
462-722: A high speed railway . The Thessaloniki Suburban Railway links the regional capital with Florina , in Western Macedonia, and Larissa , in Thessaly . Thessaloniki Airport is the third-busiest in the country, and the Athens–Thessaloniki air route was the EU's tenth busiest in 2016. Macedonia's three other airports are Kavala Airport , Kozani Airport , and Kastoria Airport ; the two busiest airports, Thessaloniki and Kavala, are operated by Fraport . The Port of Thessaloniki
616-747: A humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ), while higher elevations border a humid continental climate ( Dfa ). Thessaloniki has a cold semi-arid climate ( BSk ) while downtown Thessaloniki and Neos Marmaras are the only areas of Macedonia with a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSh ). The coldest winters are found in Florina , while the mildest are found in Neos Marmaras and Great Lavra , which fall in hardiness zone 10a. Since 1987 Macedonia has been divided into three regions ( Greek : περιφέρειες ). These are Western Macedonia , Central Macedonia , and Eastern Macedonia, which
770-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
924-741: A branch of the Macedonians invaded Southern Greece towards the end of the second millennium B.C. Upon reaching the Peloponnese the invaders were renamed Dorians , triggering the accounts of the Dorian invasion. For centuries the Macedonian tribes were organised in independent kingdoms, in what is now Central Macedonia, and their role in internal Hellenic politics was minimal, even before the rise of Athens. The Macedonians claimed to be Dorian Greeks (Argive Greeks) and there were many Ionians in
1078-631: A centre of Ottoman administration in the Balkans. While most of Macedonia was ruled by the Ottomans, in Mount Athos the monastic community continued to exist in a state of autonomy. The remainder of the Chalkidiki peninsula also enjoyed an autonomous status: the "Koinon of Mademochoria" was governed by a locally appointed council due to privileges obtained on account of its wealth, coming from
1232-497: A decrease of 26.5%. Greece exited its recession, which began in 2009, in 2016 but data from that year onward is not available for the whole of Macedonia; Central Macedonia grew by 0.57% in real terms that year to €23.85 billion ($ 26.94 billion), while Western Macedonia contracted by 10.6% to €3.85 billion ($ 4.35 billion). Almost half of the economy, 49%, is centred in the Thessaloniki regional unit , which remained in
1386-508: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
1540-520: A hub for urban tourism and gastronomy . Macedonia is also home to various lake and wetland tourist destinations. The main religion in the Greek region of Macedonia is Christianity, with majority of population belonging to the Eastern Orthodox Church . In early centuries of Christianity, the see of Thessaloniki became the metropolitan diocese of the ancient Roman province of Macedonia . The archbishop of Thessaloniki also became
1694-520: A language spoken originally on the shores of the Black Sea in northeastern Anatolia and the Caucasus , as well as a dialect indigenous to Greek Macedonia and other parts of Northern Greece known as Sarakatsánika ( Greek : Σαρακατσάνικα ); spoken by the traditionally transhumant Greek subgroup of Sarakatsani . Macedonia is also home to an array of non-Greek languages. Slavic languages are
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#17327650427881848-678: A less developed region of the Union for its 2014–2020 funding cycle, and so the region has in recent years benefited from a number of megaprojects co-financed by the Greek government and the EU. These included the A2 motorway (Egnatia Odos) freeway (€5.93 billion) and the Thessaloniki Metro (€1.85 billion) while the railway network has also been partly electrified, allowing Thessaloniki to be linked with Athens in 3.5 hours through
2002-590: A lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and
2156-400: A limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by
2310-459: A mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and a fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes ,
2464-486: A recession in 2015, declining by 0.4%. The recession had an impact on the per capita income of the region, especially when compared with the European Union average. Western Macedonia, the region with the highest per capita income, saw it drop from 83% the EU average in 2008 to 59% in 2016. The per capita income of Macedonia in 2015 was €12,900 in nominal and €15,900 in purchasing power terms. The Macedonian economy
2618-720: A reward for joining the Axis powers . The perceived existence of a foreign danger had a particularly strong effect on the emergence of a distinct regional identity in Macedonia. The representation of the Macedonian Struggle in Penelope Delta 's popular 1937 teen novel Secrets of the Swamp solidified the image of the chauvinist clash between Greeks and Bulgarians in Macedonia in the minds of many Greeks. Bulgaria
2772-409: A state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that
2926-442: A total population of 283,689 inhabitants (2.6% of the country's total), thus it is a low-density populated region (30 per km , as compared to the country's 81.96 per km average). This is mainly due to the mountainous nature of the region, as 82% of the total surface are mountainous and semi-mountainous areas. This is also reflected in the population distribution, as a majority of the population (56%) lives in rural areas. The capital of
3080-551: Is Greece's second-largest in domestic freight and fourth-largest in international freight by tonnage, while Kavala is Macedonia's other major port. Macedonia, being a border region of an EU member state, benefits from EU programs promoting cross-border economic collaboration both between members of the Union ( Bulgaria ), as well as the Republic of North Macedonia , an EU candidate country, and Albania . The EU invested €210 million ($ 237.24 million) in these three programmes for
3234-578: Is Macedonia's most popular beach destination, combining 550 kilometres (340 mi) of sandy beaches with dense forests. There were 116 Blue Flag beaches in Macedonia in 2018, 85 of which were in Chalkidiki. Additionally, the region was home to three Blue Flag marinas and one sustainable boating tourism operator. Kavala is an important economic centre of Northern Greece, a center of commerce, tourism, fishing and oil-related activities. Pieria combines extensive plains, high mountains and sandy beaches and
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#17327650427883388-461: Is a self-governing part of Greece, and the powers of the state are exercised through a governor appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs . The European Union takes this special status into consideration, particularly on matters of taxation exemption and rights of installation. Macedonia borders the sovereign states of Albania to the north-west, North Macedonia to the north, and Bulgaria to
3542-468: Is another UNESCO World Heritage Site . These are important poles for cultural tourism . Thessaloniki is home to numerous notable Byzantine monuments , including the Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki , a UNESCO World Heritage Site , as well as several Roman , Ottoman and Sephardic Jewish structures. Apart from being the cultural centre of Macedonia, Thessaloniki is also
3696-807: Is characterized by variety, since Western and Eastern Macedonia is mountainous with the exception of some fertile valleys, while the Thessaloniki-Giannitsa plain, the largest in Greece, is located in Central Macedonia . Mount Olympus , the highest mountain in Greece, is located in the Olympus Range on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, between the regional units of Pieria and Larissa, about 80 km (50 mi) southwest from Thessaloniki. Some other mountain ranges are Vermio Mountains , Pierian Mountains , Voras Mountains . The islands of Macedonia are Thasos , opposite
3850-427: Is estimated to have further decreased to 2,382,857. In the 2011 Greek census the capital city, Thessaloniki , had an urban population of 824,676, up from 794,330 in 2001, while its metropolitan population increased to over a million. 281,458 people in Macedonia (or 12% of the population) were born in a foreign country, compared to 11.89% for the whole of Greece. 51.32% of the population was female, and 48.68% male. Like
4004-462: Is highly mountainous, with major urban centres such as Thessaloniki and Kavala being concentrated on its southern coastline. Together with Thrace , along with Thessaly and Epirus occasionally, it is part of Northern Greece . Greek Macedonia encompasses entirely the southern part of the wider region of Macedonia , making up 51% of the total area of that region. Additionally, it widely constitutes Greece's borders with three countries: Albania to
4158-476: Is home to Greece's richest farmland, and the region accounts for 9,859 square kilometres (3,807 sq mi) of the country's agricultural area (30% of total). Macedonia's agricultural production has historically been dominated by tobacco, with the cash crop being grown in large quantities due to its value. Central and Western Macedonia still produce 41% of Greece's total tobacco, but it only represents 1.4% of these regions' agricultural production value. Nowadays
4312-401: Is home to four UNESCO World Heritage sites , including Aigai (modern day Vergina , about 12 km (7 mi) from Veria ), one of the ancient Macedonian capital cities, where the tomb of Philip II of Macedon is located. Pella (about 1 km (0.62 mi) from modern town of Pella and about 7 km (4.3 mi) from Giannitsa ), which replaced Aigai as the capital of Macedon in
4466-510: Is located in Zone of Alternate Urban Planning (ZEP) in the city of Kozani. The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the province was 4.0 billion € in 2018, accounting for 2.1% of Greek economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 17,700 € or 59% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 79% of the EU average. The unemployment rate stood at 19.7% in 2021, one of
4620-589: Is not an elected position, and is instead appointed at the pleasure of the Prime Minister of Greece . The current Deputy Minister in the Cabinet of Kyriakos Mitsotakis is Stavros Kalafatis [ el ] of New Democracy . The various regions of Greece are also constituencies to the Hellenic Parliament , and Macedonia is represented through its 66 members of parliament. Thessaloniki
4774-410: Is one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece , consisting of the western part of Macedonia . Located in north-western Greece , it is divided into the regional units of Florina , Grevena , Kastoria , and Kozani . With a population of approximately 255,000 people, as of 2021, the region had one of the highest unemployment rates in the European Union . The region of Western Macedonia
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4928-521: Is part of the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace . These three regions are subdivided into 14 regional units ( περιφερειακές ενότητες ) which are in turn further divided into municipalities ( δήμοι – roughly equivalent to British shires or American Townships). They are overseen by the Ministry for the Interior , while the Deputy Minister for Macedonia and Thrace is responsible for
5082-476: Is perhaps the oldest, dating to 9.6–8.7 million years ago. During the early Neolithic period, the settlement of Nea Nikomedeia was developed. In the Late Neolithic period ( c. 4500 – c. 3500 BC ), trade took place with quite distant regions, indicating rapid socio-economic changes. One of the most important innovations was the start of copper working. According to Herodotus ,
5236-422: Is primarily service-based , with services contributing €16.46 billion (60.4%) of the region's gross value added in 2015. The industrial and agricultural sectors contributed €9.06 billion (33.3%) and €1.72 billion (6.3%) respectively. The regional labour force was similarly mostly employed in services (60.4%), with industry and agriculture making up 25.6% and 14.0% of the labour force. Macedonia
5390-509: Is produced in the Region) and the fur-leather sector. However, "soft" structures have not followed the general improvement of heavy infrastructures, a situation that has to be remedied, in order to achieve an overall higher economic development of the Region. The R&D services are at a rather low level: only 3,5% of the country's total research foundations are situated in the Region. Among them,
5544-427: Is situated in north-western Greece, bordering with the regions of Central Macedonia (east), Thessaly (south), Epirus (west), and bounded to the north at the international borders of Greece with the Republic of North Macedonia ( Bitola , Resen and Novaci municipalities) and Albania ( Korçë County ). Although it covers a total surface of 9,451 km (3,649 sq mi) (7.2% of country's total), it has
5698-999: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Western Macedonia Western Macedonia ( Greek : Δυτική Μακεδονία , romanized : Ditikí Makedonía , Greek pronunciation: [ðitiˈki makeðoˈnia] )
5852-400: Is split into two constituencies, Thessaloniki A and Thessaloniki B , while Grevena is the smallest constituency with only 1 seat. Thessaloniki A is the second-largest constituency in Greece with 16 MPs. Macedonia is bordered by the neighbouring Greek regions of Thessaly to the south, Thrace (part of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace ) to the east, and Epirus to the west. It also includes
6006-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
6160-580: Is the most popular tourist destination in Greece that is not an island, and its fourth overall, outperforming all other regions of the Greek mainland with 9.7 million overnight stays in 2017. There were a further 2.1 million stays in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and 294 thousand in Western Macedonia . Macedonia is a diverse region which allows it to cater to a variety of different types of tourism. The Chalkidiki peninsula
6314-456: Is the music of the geographic region of Macedonia in Greece , which is a part of the music of whole region of Macedonia . Notable element of the local folk music is the use of trumpets and koudounia (called chálkina in the local dialect). In 2011 the permanent population of the region stood at 2,406,393 residents, a decrease from 2,422,533 in 2001. As of 2017, the population of Macedonia
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6468-579: Is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near the Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in
6622-508: Is traditionally derived from the Indo-European root *meh₂ḱ- , meaning 'long' or 'slender'. Linguist Robert S. P. Beekes supports the idea that both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology. However, Beekes' views are not mainstream and De Decker argues that his arguments are insufficient. The region has historically also been known as Македония (Makedonija) in Bulgarian and
6776-738: Is unknown). Many Aromanian villages can be found along the slopes of the Vermion Mountains and Mount Olympus . Smaller numbers can be found in the Prespes region and near the Gramos mountains. Megleno-Romanians can be found in the Moglena region of Macedonia. The Megleno-Romanian language is traditionally spoken in the 11 Megleno-Romanian villages spread across Greece and the Republic of North Macedonia , including Archangelos , Notia , Lagkadia , and Skra . They are generally adherents to
6930-548: The Battle of Maritsa (1371), Byzantine rule was reestablished in eastern regions, including Serres . During the 1380s, the region was gradually conquered by the advancing Ottomans , with Serres holding out until 1383, and Thessaloniki until 1387. After a brief Byzantine interval in 1403–1430 (during the last seven years of which the city was handed over to the Venetians), Thessaloniki and its immediate surrounding area returned to
7084-612: The Battle of Pydna (22 June 168 BC), in which the Roman general Aemilius Paulus defeated King Perseus of Macedon , ending the reign of the Antigonid dynasty over Macedonia. For a brief period a Macedonian republic called the "Koinon of the Macedonians" was established. It was divided into four administrative districts by the Romans in the hope that this would make revolts more difficult, but this manoeuvre failed. Then in 148 BC, Macedonia
7238-562: The British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in
7392-821: The Council of Europe in Strasbourg in January 2007, declaring that "I myself am a Macedonian, and another two and a half million Greeks are Macedonians". In the early-to-mid 20th century Greece was invaded by Bulgaria three times with the aim of capturing portions Macedonia; during the Second Balkan War , during the First World War , and during the Second World War . Additionally, Nazi Germany had promised Thessaloniki to Yugoslavia as
7546-596: The Decentralized Administration of Epirus and Western Macedonia . It also includes the autonomous monastic community of Mount Athos , which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (through the civil administrator of Mount Athos ) in its political aspect, and of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in its religious aspect. The region remains an important economic centre for Greece. Macedonia accounts for
7700-574: The Despotate of Epirus , all of which helped promote a distinct Greek Macedonian identity. In the contemporary period this is reinforced by Greek Macedonia's proximity to other states in the southern Balkans, the continuing existence of ethnic and religious minorities in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace not found in southern Greece, and the fact that migrants and refugees from elsewhere in the Balkans, southern Russia, and Georgia (including Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks from northeastern Anatolia and
7854-657: The European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek
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#17327650427888008-686: The First Balkan War , and expanded its share in the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria. The boundaries of Greek Macedonia were finalised in the Treaty of Bucharest . In World War I , Macedonia became a battlefield. The Greek Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos , favoured entering the war on the side of the Entente , while the Germanophile King Constantine I favoured neutrality. Invited by Venizelos, in autumn 1915,
8162-688: The Greek Communist Party and forced to flee to the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Macedonia and other countries in Eastern and Central Europe. Some also immigrated to Canada, Australia, and the United States. Current Greek law still forbids the reentry and restitution of property by Macedonians that are not "Greek by origin." Macedonia is the largest and second-most-populous Greek region . The landscape
8316-540: The Greek War of Independence . The revolt spread from Central to Western Macedonia . In the autumn of 1821, Nikolaos Kasomoulis was sent to southern Greece as the "representative of South-East Macedonia", and met Demetrius Ypsilantis. At the beginning of 1822, Anastasios Karatasos and Angelis Gatsos arranged a meeting with other armatoloi and decided that the insurrection should be based on three towns: Naoussa, Kastania , and Siatista . In 1854 Theodoros Ziakas ,
8470-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
8624-411: The Macedonia naming dispute in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia , in which Greece objected to its northern neighbour calling itself the " Republic of Macedonia ". This objection is the direct result of this regional identity, and a matter of heritage for northern Greeks. A characteristic expression of this self-identification was manifested by Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis at a meeting of
8778-421: The Macedonians to resist both Ottoman and Bulgarian forces, by sending military officers who formed bands made up of Macedonians and other Greek volunteers, something that resulted in the Macedonian Struggle from 1904 to 1908, which ended with the Young Turk Revolution . The Macedonians fought alongside the regular Greek army during the struggle for Macedonia. There are monuments in Macedonia commemorating
8932-408: The Makedonomachoi , the local Macedonian and other Greek fighters, who took part in the wars and died to liberate Macedonia from the Ottoman rule, officially memorialized as heroes. Greece gained the southern parts of the region (with Thessaloniki ), which corresponded to that of ancient Macedonia attributed as part of Greek history and had a strong Greek presence, from the Ottoman Empire after
9086-408: The Nuremberg Laws , which saw some 43,000–49,000 of Thessaloniki's 56,000 Jews exterminated in the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps . In its own zone of annexation, Bulgaria actively persecuted the local Greek population with the help of Bulgarian collaborationists. Further demographic change happened in the aftermath of the Greek Civil War , when many Slavs of Macedonia who fought on
9240-445: The Peloponnesian War , Macedonia became the theatre of many military actions by the Peloponnesian League and the Athenians, and saw incursions of Thracians and Illyrians, as attested by Thucydides. Many Macedonian cities were allied to the Spartans (both the Spartans and the Macedonians were Dorian, while the Athenians were Ionian), but Athens maintained the colony of Amphipolis under her control for many years. The kingdom of Macedon ,
9394-402: The Seleucids from Orestis and the Antigonids from Elimiotis . The population of Western Macedonia was 283,689 according to the 2011 Greek census . Today, the region is predominantly ethnic Greek with Slavophone Greeks being a minority. The former are mainly concentrated in the towns Florina , Kastoria and Ptolemaida . There are also around 1,400 Slavophones—approximately 0.5% of
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#17327650427889548-472: The United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout the Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to
9702-607: The University of Western Macedonia plays an important role in supporting the regional research and educational efforts. However, an enhanced interaction with SME's will be a crucial factor, in order to improve the productivity and the added value of products and services generated in the Region of Western Macedonia. Some of its more famous products are marbles , Saffron ( krokos Kozanis), fruits, Florina peppers , local wines ( Kozani , Amyntaio ), furs ( Kastoria , Siatista ) and specialized arts and crafts industry. The A2 motorway (Egnatia Odos, Trans–European Network) that crosses
9856-424: The ancient Greek regions of Orestis , Elimiotis , Eordaea , Tymphaea , part of Lynkestis , of Upper Macedonia . Miltiades Hatzopoulos and other scholars suggest that the Argead Macedonians wandered from Orestis to Lower Macedonia where they founded the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon . Three of the most important Hellenistic dynasties originated from Upper Macedonia : the Lagids from Eordaea ,
10010-468: The centre-right New Democracy party, while Karypidis is an independent . Elections take place in a two-round system , where the two candidates with the most votes face each other in a second round if no one has managed to get a majority of more than 50% of the votes in the first round. Regional councils, mayors, and other officials are also elected in this way. The next local elections will take place in 2019. The Deputy Minister for Macedonia and Thrace
10164-468: The genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in
10318-511: The local South Slavic dialects , Makedonya in Turkish , and Machedonia in Aromanian . Machedonia is also the name for the region in Megleno-Romanian . Macedonia lies at the crossroads of human development between the Aegean and the Balkans. The earliest signs of human habitation date back to the palaeolithic period, notably with the Petralona cave in which was found the oldest yet known European humanoid, Archanthropus europaeus petraloniensis . The Ouranopithecus macedoniensis
10472-420: The rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire , the name Macedonia was revived in the nineteenth century as a geographical term, and for educated Greeks it corresponded to the ancient historical land. The economic ascent of Thessaloniki and of the other urban centres of Macedonia coincided with the cultural and political renaissance of the Greeks . The leader and coordinator of the Greek Revolution in Macedonia
10626-493: The south Caucasus ) have usually gravitated to Greek Macedonia rather than southern Greece. Greek is the majority language throughout Greece today, with an estimated 5% of the population speaking a language other than Greek, and is the only language of administration and education in the region. Greek is spoken universally in Greek Macedonia, even in the border regions where there is a strong presence of languages other than Greek. The Greek government exhibits some tolerance toward
10780-417: The syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However,
10934-430: The vilayet of Selânik ( Thessaloniki ), 261,283 Greeks in the vilayet of Monastir ( Bitola ) and 13,452 Greeks in the villayet of Kosovo . Of those 648,962 Greeks by church, 307,000 identified as Greek speakers, while about 250,000 as Slavic speakers and 99,000 as "Vlach" (Aromanian or Megleno-Romanian). However, these figures extend to territories both inside and outside of Greek Macedonia. Hugh Poulton, in his Who Are
11088-597: The 2014–2020 funding cycle. A€10 billion ($ 11.3 billion) Egnatia Railway crossing Macedonia and linking Alexandroupoli in Western Thrace with Igoumenitsa in Epirus was proposed to the European Commission in 2017 but remains in planning with a projected start date in 2019. If completed, the 565 km (351 mi) railway line will be Europe's largest rail megaproject . Central Macedonia
11242-566: The 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
11396-663: The Allies landed forces in Thessaloniki to aid Serbia in its war against Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, but their intervention came too late to prevent the Serbian collapse. The Macedonian front was established, with Thessaloniki at its heart, while in summer 1916 the Bulgarians took over Greek eastern Macedonia without opposition. This provoked a military uprising among pro-Venizelist officers in Thessaloniki, resulting in
11550-602: The Great 's father. His discoveries were drawn upon as evidence of ethnic and cultural links between the ancient Macedonians and southern Greek city-states by Greeks in Macedonia. The distinct regional identity of Greek Macedonians is also the product of the fact that it was closer to the centres of power in both the Byzantine and Ottoman period, was considered culturally, politically, and strategically more important than other parts of Greece during these two periods, and also
11704-554: The Greek Despotate of Epirus , Theodore Komnenos Doukas in 1224, when Greek Macedonia and the city of Thessaloniki were at the heart of the short-lived Empire of Thessalonica . Returning to the restored Byzantine Empire shortly thereafter, Greek Macedonia remained in Byzantine hands until the 1340s, when all of Macedonia (except Thessaloniki, and possibly Veria ) was conquered by the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan . After
11858-544: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
12012-549: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
12166-655: The Greek-dominated community of Orthodox Christians. The Slavs of Macedonia generally referred to themselves and were known as "Bulgarians". By the middle of the 19th century, peasant communities of Macedonia experienced the formation of deep divisions with rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire . From then, the Slavic speaking communities of northern Greece split into two hostile and opposed groups with two different national identities – Greek and Bulgarian. By
12320-665: The Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek
12474-576: The Macedonians , notes that "assessing population figures is problematic" for the territory of Greek Macedonia before its incorporation into the Greek state in 1913. The area's remaining population was principally composed of Ottoman Turks (including non-Turkish Muslims of mainly Bulgarian and Greek Macedonian convert origin) and also a sizeable community of mainly Sephardic Jews (centred in Thessaloniki), and smaller numbers of Romani , Albanians , Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians . When Macedonia
12628-653: The Middle Ages to the early 20th century, the ethnic composition of the region of Macedonia is characterised by uncertainty both about numbers and identification. The earliest estimation we have is from the Greek consulate of Thessaloniki in 1884, which according to it the nowadays Greek region of Macedonia had 1,073,000 Greeks (Grecophones, Slavophones, Albanophones), 565,000 Muslims , 215,000 Bulgarians and 16,000 Aromanians . The 1904 Ottoman census of Hilmi Pasha people were assigned to ethnicity according which church/language they belonged, it recorded 373,227 Greeks in
12782-716: The Orthodox Church while the former majority in Notia was Muslim. Arvanite communities exist in Serres regional unit , while many can also be found in Thessaloniki. There are three Arvanite villages in the Florina regional unit ( Drosopigi , Lechovo and Flampouro ) with others located in Kilkis and Thessaloniki regional units. Other minority groups include Armenians and Romani . Romani communities are concentrated mainly around
12936-426: The Ottomans. The capture of Thessaloniki in 1430 threw the Byzantine world into consternation, being regarded correctly as a prelude to the fall of Constantinople itself. The memory of the event has survived through folk traditions containing fact and myths. Apostolos Vacalopoulos records the following Turkish tradition connected with the capture of Thessaloniki: "While Murad was asleep in his palace at Yenitsa,
13090-595: The Second World War and following the defeat of Bulgaria, another further split between the Slavic groups occurred. Conservatives departed with the occupying Bulgarian Army to Bulgaria. Leftists who identified as Macedonians (Slavic), joined the communist-dominated rebel Democratic Army of Greece . At the conclusion of the Greek Civil War (1946–49), most Macedonians of Slavic background were evacuated by
13244-579: The Slavic element in the area led two brothers from Thessaloniki , Saints Cyril and Methodius , to be chosen to convert the Slavs to Christianity. Following the campaigns of Basil II , all of Macedonia returned to the Byzantine state. Following the Fourth Crusade 1203–1204, a short-lived Crusader realm, the Kingdom of Thessalonica , was established in the region. It was subdued by the co-founder of
13398-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
13552-486: The administrative regions of Western and Central Macedonia in modern Greece. The name Macedonia was later applied to a number of widely-differing administrative areas in the Roman and Byzantine empires. With the gradual conquest of south-eastern Europe by the Ottomans in the late 14th century, the name of Macedonia disappeared as an administrative designation for several centuries and was rarely displayed on maps. With
13706-479: The arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from
13860-633: The autonomous monastic community of Mount Athos , which has existed as a religious sanctuary since the Middle Ages . The community of the mount Athos is under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and is inaccessible to women, punishable by a penalty of incarceration of up to twelve months. This has been criticised by the European Parliament . The territory of Mount Athos
14014-563: The burial sites of several kings of Macedon were found, including the tomb of Philip II of Macedon . It is also the site of an extensive royal palace. The archaeological museum of Vergina was built to house all the artifacts found at the site and is one of the most important museums in Greece. Pella , which replaced Aigai as the capital of Macedon in the fourth century BC, is also located in Central Macedonia , as well as Dion in Pieria and Amphipolis . Philippi , located in eastern Macedonia ,
14168-443: The city of Thessaloniki. An uncertain number of them live in Macedonia from the total of about 200,000–300,000 that live scattered on all the regions of Greece . Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within
14322-467: The coastal areas and nearer Thrace remaining in Byzantine hands, while most of the hinterland was disputed between the Byzantium and Bulgaria . The Macedonian regions under Byzantine control passed under the tourma of Macedonia to the province of Thrace . A new system of administration came into place in 789–802 AD, following the Byzantine empire 's recovery from these invasions. The new system
14476-473: The coastal regions. The rest of the region was inhabited by various Thracian and Illyrian tribes as well as mostly coastal colonies of other Greek states such as Amphipolis , Olynthos, Potidea, Stageira and many others, and to the north another tribe dwelt, called the Paeonians . During the late 6th and early 5th century BC, the region came under Persian rule until the destruction of Xerxes at Plataea . During
14630-434: The coasts of Eastern Macedonia and the port of Kavala , and Ammouliani , opposite the coasts of Central Macedonia, in Chalkidiki . Haliacmon , which flows through Kastoria , Grevena , Kozani , Imathia and Pieria regional units, is the longest river in Greece. Some other rivers are Axios ( Vardar ), Strymonas , Loudias . Macedonia for the most part enjoys a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csa ). Some parts have
14784-503: The coordination and application of the government's policies in all three Macedonian regions. Prior to 1987 Macedonia was a single administrative and geographical unit. The heads of the various administrative units are elected. The last Greek local elections were in 2014 , and saw Apostolos Tzitzikostas elected regional governor of Central Macedonia , Giorgos Pavlidis in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace , and Theodoros Karypidis in Western Macedonia. Tzitzikostas and Pavlidis are members of
14938-796: The country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine ,
15092-441: The dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before
15246-528: The earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of the Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of
15400-566: The elections are held together with the European Parliament elections for a five-year period. The region is based at Kozani and is divided into four regional units (the pre-Kallikratis prefectures ). It comprises 12 municipalities (down from 61 pre-Kallikratis local administrative units). Along with the neighboring Epirus region it is supervised by the Ioannina -based Decentralized Administration of Epirus and Western Macedonia . The modern region of Western Macedonia roughly corresponds to
15554-567: The establishment of a " Provisional Government of National Defence " in the city, headed by Venizelos, which entered the war alongside the Allies. After intense diplomatic negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Entente and royalist forces the King abdicated, and his second son Alexander took his place. Venizelos returned to Athens in June 1917 and Greece, now unified, officially joined
15708-412: The extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English
15862-411: The fact that the region had a far more ethnically and religiously diverse population in both the medieval and Ottoman periods. In the late Byzantine period Greek Macedonia had also been the centre of significant Byzantine successor states, such as the Kingdom of Thessalonica , the short-lived state established by the rival Byzantine emperor, Theodore Komnenos Doukas , and – in parts of western Macedonia –
16016-539: The fourth century BC and was the birthplace of Alexander the Great, is also located in the Greek region of Macedonia. The name Macedonia derives from the Greek : Μακεδονία ( Makedonía ), a kingdom (later, region ) named after the ancient Macedonians , who were the descendants of a Bronze-Age Greek tribe . Their name, Μακεδόνες ( Makedónes ), is cognate to the Ancient Greek adjective μᾰκεδνός ( makednós ), meaning 'tall, slim'. It
16170-493: The gold and silver mines in the area. There were several uprisings in Macedonia during Ottoman rule , including an uprising after the Battle of Lepanto that ended in massacres of the Greek population, the uprising in Naousa of the armatolos Zisis Karademos in 1705, a rebellion in the area of Grevena by a Klepht called Ziakas (1730–1810). The Greek Declaration of Independence in Macedonia by Emmanuel Pappas in 1821, during
16324-559: The highest regional unemployment rates in the European Union . As one of thirteen administrative regions , the Western Macedonia Region ( Greek : Περιφέρεια Δυτικής Μακεδονίας , Periféria Dytikís Makedonías ) was established in 1987, comprising the prefectures of Kastoria , Grevena , Kozani and Florina . In the absence of a working budget the administrative regions however remained unable to fulfill even their limited responsibilities, until in 1994 they assumed
16478-610: The history of Macedonia began with the Makednoi tribe, among the first to use the name, migrating to the region from Histiaeotis in the south. There they lived near Thracian tribes such as the Bryges who would later leave Macedonia for Asia Minor and become known as Phrygians . Macedonia was named after the Makednoi. Accounts of other toponyms such as Emathia are attested to have been in use before that. Herodotus claims that
16632-443: The invitation. Subsequently the provinces of Epirus and Thessaly as well as other regions to the north were incorporated into a new Provincia Macedonia, but in 297 AD under a Diocletianic reform many of these regions were removed and two new provinces were created: Macedonia Prima and Macedonia Salutaris (from 479 to 482 AD Macedonia Secunda). Macedonia Prima coincided approximately with Strabo's definition of Macedonia and with
16786-449: The language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows
16940-512: The last decade, providing the regional population with adequate services and modern facilities. The last years the region is being developed in tourism mainly on winter. It is the only Greek region without sea coast, but there are a lot of lakes, mountains, villages and two big ski centers in Florina ( Vigla ) and Grevena ( Vasilitsa ) and one other under construction in Kozani ( Velvendos ). The administrative building of Western Macedonia region
17094-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
17248-539: The linguistic and ethnic minority groups in Macedonia is not known with any degree of scientific accuracy, as Greece has not conducted a census on the question of mother tongue since 1951. Aromanians form a minority population throughout much of Macedonia. They largely identify as Greeks and most belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, many refusing to be called a minority group. In the 1951 census they numbered 39,855 in all Greece (the number in Macedonia proper
17402-501: The local population—who profess a Slavic Macedonian identity. Other smaller communities include Aromanians and Arvanites . The region has shrunk by 28,633 people between 2011 and 2021, experiencing a highest percentage population loss in Greece of 10.1%. The biggest towns in each regional unit, according to the census of 2011 (only communities with population more than 2,000 recorded): The University of Western Macedonia provides technical education to stimulate growth throughout
17556-412: The majority of Greece's agricultural production and is also a major contributor to the country's industrial and tourism sectors. The metropolis of the region, Thessaloniki is the second-largest city and a major economic, industrial, cultural, commercial and political centre of Greece. Central Macedonia is Greece's fourth-most-popular tourist region and the most popular destination that is not an island. It
17710-452: The many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is
17864-556: The modern administrative district of Greece and had Thessaloniki as its capital, while Macedonia Salutaris had the Paeonian city of Stobi (near Gradsko ) as its capital. This subdivision is mentioned in Hierocles ' Synecdemon (527–528) and remained through the reign of emperor Justinian . The Slavic , Avar , Bulgarian and Magyar invasions in the 6–7th centuries devastated both provinces with only parts of Macedonia Prima in
18018-571: The modern times. Contemporary Greek Macedonian cooking shares much with general Greek and wider Balkan and Mediterranean cuisine, including dishes from the Ottoman past. Specific influences include dishes of the Pontic , Aromanian , Armenian and Sephardi Jewish population. The mix of the different people inhabiting the region gave the name to the Macedonian salad . Music of Macedonia
18172-465: The morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of
18326-525: The most prevalent minority languages in the region, while Aromanian , Arvanitic , Megleno-Romanian , Turkish , and Romani are also spoken. Judaeo-Spanish , also known as Ladino , was historically the language of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki, although the Holocaust nearly eradicated the city's previously-vibrant Jewish community of 70,000 to a mere 3,000 individuals today. The exact size of
18480-557: The north-east. The table below is a concise list of the various subdivisions of Macedonia: The Gross Domestic Product of Macedonia peaked at €41.99 billion ($ 47.44 billion) in nominal value and €46.87 billion ($ 52.95 billion) in purchasing power parity just before the Great Recession in 2008; it has since then contracted to its lowest point in 2015, during the Greek government-debt crisis , to €30.85 billion ($ 34.85 billion) and €38.17 billion ($ 43.12 billion);
18634-547: The northwest, North Macedonia to the north, and Bulgaria to the northeast. Greek Macedonia incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon , a Greek kingdom ruled by the Argeads , whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great and his father Philip II . Before the expansion of Macedonia under Philip in the 4th century BC, the kingdom of the Macedonians covered an area corresponding roughly to
18788-463: The prefectures' competences in regard to tax collection , European structural funding and treasury . Resulting from the 2010 Kallikratis Programme , prefectures were abolished and instead, the regions became self-governing bodies in their own right with powers and authority being redefined and largely extended. Starting with the 2010 local elections , both the regional governor and the regional council have been popularly elected. From 2014 on,
18942-522: The reform of 1987, when it was split into the second-level administrative divisions of Western Macedonia and Central Macedonia ; while the eastern part, into the Drama-Kavala-Xanthi Super-prefecture until 2010, and part of the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace division after 2010. The region is further divided between the third-level administrative divisions of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace , and
19096-460: The region are known. Macedonians came to be of particular importance prior to the Balkan Wars , during the Macedonian Struggle , when they were a minority population inside the multiethnic Ottoman Macedonia . The Macedonians now have a strong regional identity, manifested both in Greece and by emigrant groups in the Greek diaspora . This sense of identity has been highlighted in the context of
19250-483: The region is Kozani with 53,880 inhabitants. Other main towns are Ptolemaida (37,289), Grevena (17,610), Florina (19,985) and Kastoria (16,958). The region has one operational Industrial Area in Florina and another one under construction in Kozani. The secondary sector is very important for the Regional economy, mainly due to the mining activities, the production of electric power (70% of country's total power
19404-522: The region remained in the Ottoman Empire. In the early 20th century the region was already a national cause, contested among the states of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. After the Macedonian Struggle and the Balkan Wars (in 1912 and 1913), the modern Greek region of Macedonia became part of the modern Greek state in 1912–13, in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars and the Treaty of Bucharest (1913) . It continued as an administrative division of Greece until
19558-405: The region's beauty gives it a great potential for further tourist development. The island of Thasos , lying close to the coast of eastern Macedonia, is another tourist destination. Chalkidiki is home to Mount Athos , which is an important centre of religious tourism . The mountainous interior allows for hiking activities and adventure sports , while ski resorts like Vasilitsa also operate in
19712-422: The region, along with its two vertical National Roads, form a network that dramatically improves the transport conditions in the Region and alter its traditional "isolation" image, mainly due to its mountainous landscape. On the other hand, the railroad network is insufficient and the two airports (Kozani and Kastoria) can only serve small passenger planes. The telecommunication network has dramatically improved over
19866-463: The regional agricultural economy is centered around cereal, fruit, and industrial crops . Overall Central and Western Macedonia account for 25% of the value of Greek agricultural produce (including 41% of fruit and 43% cereal). A brand identity for products made in Macedonia, called "Macedonia the GReat", was launched in 2019 by the Greek government. The European Union considers most of Macedonia to be
20020-643: The regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of
20174-413: The rest of Greece Macedonia is faced with an aging population; the largest age group in the region is that of the over 70, at 15.59% of the population, while the 0–9 and 10–19 groups combined made up 20.25% of the population. The largest urban centres in Macedonia in 2011 were: The inhabitants of Greek Macedonia are nowadays overwhelmingly ethnic Greeks , and most are also Greek Orthodox Christians. From
20328-555: The river Strymon , although he mentions that other writers placed Macedonia's border with Thrace at the river Nestos , which is also the present geographical boundary between the two administrative districts of Greece . The Acts of the Apostles ( Acts 16:9–10 ) records a vision in which the apostle Paul is said to have seen a ' man of Macedonia ' pleading with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us". The passage reports that Paul and his companions responded immediately to
20482-457: The senior ecclesiastical primate of the entire Eastern Illyricum , and in 535 his jurisdiction was reduced to the administrative territory of the Diocese of Macedonia . In the 8th century, from Rome it came under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople , and remained the main ecclesiastical centre in the historical region of Macedonia throughout the Middle Ages, and up to
20636-482: The side of the Democratic Army of Greece and fought to separate Greek Macedonia from the rest of Greece under the auspices of Yugoslavia , left Greece. These expatriates were the primary source of ethnic Macedonian irredentism and the appropriation of ancient Macedonian heritage. Macedonians ( Greek : Μακεδόνες , Makedónes [makeˈðones] ) is the term by which ethnic Greeks originating from
20790-605: The son of the klepht Ziakas, together with Dimitrios Karatasos , who had been among the captains at the siege of Naousa in 1821, led another uprising in Western Macedonia that has been profusely commemorated in Greek folk song. To strengthen Greek efforts for Macedonia, the Hellenic Macedonian Committee was formed in 1903, under the leadership of Dimitrios Kalapothakis ; its members included Ion Dragoumis and Pavlos Melas . Its fighters were known as Makedonomachoi ("Macedonian fighters"). Greece helped
20944-466: The story has it that, God appeared to him in a dream and gave him a lovely rose to smell, full of perfume. The sultan was so amazed by its beauty that he begged God to give it to him. God replied, "This rose, Murad, is Thessalonica. Know that it is to you granted by heaven to enjoy it. Do not waste time; go and take it". Complying with this exhortation from God, Murad marched against Thessalonica and, as it has been written, captured it." Thessaloniki became
21098-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
21252-507: The total population in 1920 to 12% in 1928, with the Great Greek Encyclopedia noting in 1934 that those minorities that remained "do not yet possess a Greek national consciousness ". The population of Macedonia was greatly affected by the Second World War , as it was militarily occupied by Nazi Germany while its ally, Bulgaria , annexed eastern Macedonia. Germany administered its occupation zone by implementation of
21406-419: The use of minority languages, though Greece is one of the countries which has not signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ; a number of court cases have been brought to the attention of the European Parliament regarding the suppression of minority linguistic rights. Apart from Standard Modern Greek, a number of other Greek dialects are spoken in Macedonia. This includes Pontic Greek ,
21560-454: The war on the side of the Allies. In World War II Macedonia was occupied by the Axis (1941–44), with Germany taking western and central Macedonia with Thessaloniki and Bulgaria occupying and annexing eastern Macedonia. At the beginning of the 19th century, Slavic peasants identified themselves based on belonging to their family, village, or local region, or as " Rum Millet ", i.e. members of
21714-499: The winter months. Macedonia is home to four of Greece's 18 UNESCO World Heritage sites . Vergina is best known as the site of ancient Aigai (Αἰγαί, Aigaí , Latinized : Aegae ), the first capital of Macedon . Aigai has been awarded UNESCO World Heritage Site status. In 336 BC Philip II was assassinated in Aigai's theatre and his son, Alexander the Great , was proclaimed king. The most important recent finds were made in 1977 when
21868-482: Was Emmanouel Pappas from Dovista (in Serres ), and the revolt spread from Central to Western Macedonia. Letters from the period show Pappas either being addressed or signing himself as "Leader and Defender of Macedonia" and is today considered a Greek hero along with the unnamed Macedonians that fought with him. The fall and massacre of Naoussa marked the end of the Greek Revolution in Macedonia, and
22022-515: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
22176-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
22330-707: Was based on administrative divisions called Themata . The region of Macedonia Prima (the territory of modern Greek administrative district of Macedonia) was divided between the Thema of Thessaloniki and the Thema of Strymon , so that only the region of the area from Nestos eastwards continued to carry the name Macedonia, referred to as the Thema of Macedonia or the Thema of "Macedonia in Thrace". The Thema of Macedonia in Thrace had its capital in Adrianople . Familiarity with
22484-556: Was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and
22638-487: Was first incorporated in Greece in 1913, however, Greeks were a marginal plurality in the region. The treaties of Neuilly (1919) and Lausanne (1923) mandated a forceful exchange of populations with Bulgaria and Turkey respectively, and some 776,000 Greek refugees (mostly from Turkey) were resettled in Macedonia, displacing 300,000–400,000 non-Greeks who were forced to move as part of the population exchange. The population of ethnic minorities in Macedonia dropped from 48% of
22792-502: Was fully annexed by the Romans. The northern boundary at that time ended at Lake Ohrid and Bylazora , a Paeonian city near the modern city of Veles . Strabo , writing in the first century AD places the border of Macedonia on that part at Lychnidos , Byzantine Achris and presently Ochrid . Therefore, ancient Macedonia did not significantly extend beyond its current borders (in Greece). To the east, Macedonia ended according to Strabo at
22946-485: Was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in
23100-642: Was reorganised by Philip II and achieved the union of Greek states by forming the League of Corinth . After his assassination, his son Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon and carrying the title of Hegemon of League of Corinth started his long campaign towards the east. After the death of Alexander the Great and the Wars of the Diadochi , Macedonia was a powerful state of Hellenistic Greece . Macedonia remained an important and powerful kingdom until
23254-412: Was specifically mentioned as the enemy in Greek Macedonia's unofficial anthem, Famous Macedonia , the reference only being replaced by vague 'Barbarians' with the normalization of Greco-Bulgarian relations in the 1970s. During the same period, Manolis Andronikos made major archaeological discoveries at Aigai , the first capital of ancient Macedonia , which included the tomb of Phillip II , Alexander
23408-453: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
23562-637: Was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to
23716-450: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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