David Andrews Jr., age 14, of Cleveland, Ohio, for his question:
WHERE IS MACEDONIA?
Macedonia is a mountainous region in the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. The Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913 divided Macedonia among Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, which is now Yugoslavia.
The area called Macedonia covers about 25,000 square miles and has a population of about 4 million. Most of the people living in the north are Slavs and most of those living in the south are Greeks.
Almost ail the people in Macedonia are farmers. They raise barley, corn, rice, rye, wheat and a variety of fruits and vegetables. They also raise sheep and goats.
Greek Macedonia covers just over 13,000 square miles and has a population of about 2 million. Much of Greek Macedonia is a plain that is watered by the Axios, Strimon and Nestos rivers. Its capital is Salonika.
Yugoslavian Macedonia is one of Yugoslavia's six so called republics. It covers about 10,000 square miles and has a population of about 1.7 million. The capital is Skopje.
Bulgarian Macedonia covers 2,500 square miles and has about 300,000 people. Blagoevgrad is the capital.
A savage European people called the Thracians moved into the region about 2000 B.C. After 1100 B.C., the Macedonians came under the influence of the Greeks.
Macedonia became a Roman province in 148 B.C. It was made a part of the Byzantine Empire when the Roman Empire was divided in A.D. 395.
Macedonia was included in the first Bulgarian empire in the 800s and in the Serbian empire in the 1300s.
From 1389 until 1912, the Turks had possession of Macedonia. Then came the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.
The Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian inhabitants of Macedonia struggled against Turkey from the 1890s to 1912.
The Balkan allies defeated Turkey in the First Balkan War in 1912 and Macedonia was divided among Greece, Serbia (Yugoslavia) and Bulgaria.
Bulgaria started the Second Balkan War in 1913 to get more land but was defeated by the other Balkan countries.
In attempts to gain more of Macedonia, Bulgaria invaded the region during both World Wars. Both times, the Greeks and Serbs fought on the victorious side and drove the Bulgarians from Macedonia.
The word "Balkan" means "mountain" in Turkish.