Travel Alert Status
Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions
Time Difference
UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time)
Travel Climate
Mostly a country of hills and mountains, Macedonia has a continental Mediterranean climate characterized by long, dry, rather hot summers and short, cold winters. The average air temperature in the summer is 25°C (77°F) and 0.5°C (33°F) in winter. However, short periods of extreme temperatures of 110-115°F in summer and low 20s in the winter are common. The average annual precipitation is 445.5 mm. The humidity in Macedonia averages 66%. Occasionally, there are dust storms in the Vardar River valley. Macedonia is on a fault line and the country averages four earthquakes a year (most go unnoticed) with a median reading of 6 on the Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik International Seismological Scale.
Language Spoken
The official language is Macedonian, which is written in a Cyrillic script. Albanian, Turkish, and Serbian are spoken widely. Sixty-seven per cent of the population in Macedonia are Macedonian, 22.9% are Albanian and there are between 2-3% Gypsy and Serb minorities.
Languages
Macedonian 68%, Albanian 25%, Turkish 3%, Serbo-Croatian 2%, other 2%
Ethnic Groups
Macedonian 58.4%, Albanian 24.3%, Turkish 3.9%, Romani 2.5%, Serb 1.3%, other 2.3%, persons for whom data were taken from administrative sources and no ethnic affiliation data was available 7.2%
National Holiday
Independence Day, 8 September (1991), also known as National Day
Geographic Coordinates
41 50 N, 22 00 E
Location
Southeastern Europe, north of Greece
Airports
8